


Remember Me

by Nightingale96



Category: Lunar Chronicles - Marissa Meyer
Genre: Adventure, Amnesia, Canon Compliant, F/M, Happy Ending, Light Angst, Post-Canon, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-11 07:06:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 26
Words: 41,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28467276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nightingale96/pseuds/Nightingale96
Summary: A run-in with shady figures from Thorne's past leaves him stranded with Cress off the coast of California and suffering from amnesia.
Relationships: Crescent Moon "Cress" Darnel/Carswell Thorne
Comments: 42
Kudos: 33





	1. Mistakes of The Past

Cress scrolled through the feeds on her netscreen. A cute cat played with a toy mouse. Two girls danced to a popular song. A woman talked about Lunar politics while she did her makeup. This was how she liked to unwind after a day of deliveries. 

The Rampion was parked on the outskirts of the latest letumosis outbreak zone, a rural town in Iceland. 

“Wait until we go to Greenland,” Thorne had said when they arrived at the lush green landscape. “That’s where the real ice is.”

“I know,” she had replied. “I can’t wait to see real earthen snow again! And maybe actually get to enjoy it, this time.”

The Rampion had taken them to snowy climates before. They had been traveling around the world, delivering the letumosis antidote for two years now, but last time they were in a snowy place, Cress had gotten a cold and spent the whole trip in bed. 

Cress’s thoughts drifted to what they would do in the snowy lands. She and Thorne walking down an icy path, their boots crunching crisp footprints in the tiny crystals. Snowflakes landing in their hair. Thorne brushing snowflakes off her cheeks and leaning in close, sharing his warmth. His knuckles tracing down to her lips. 

“Knock, knock.”

Cress startled, her port screen nearly flying out of her hands. A hot flush crept up her neck. Thorne stood in the doorway, freshly showered. His hair stood on end and his gray t-shirt looked a bit damp around the collar. 

“What’cha got there?” he asked, strolling toward her. It was a baking tutorial. 

“I think I’m going to make another attempt at cookies again,” she said breathlessly. 

“I hope that goes better than last time,” he said with a chuckle. Last time, she had burnt them. 

“At least I didn’t set the toaster on fire,” she said, sitting up and giving him a friendly nudge. 

He ran his hand along his chin thoughtfully. “I’m still not sure how I did that… Are you showering soon? I hate to admit it, but I’ve been wondering what Mr. Darcy is up to all day.”

Cress smiled. She and Thorne spent their evenings before bed watching Cress’s favorite net dramas. And while Thorne pretended not to be interested in anything that wasn’t a space adventure, he usually got super invested about halfway through the show. Currently, they were watching an old second era series called The Lizzie Bennet Diaries. 

“I’ll make it quick,” said Cress, already up and on her way to the washroom. 

~ ~ ~

Thorne queued up the net drama from where they last left off. Lizzie was sitting in front of her camera wearing a hat that meant she was doing an impression of her mother. The show was so old, it hadn’t been converted to a holograph format and Lizzie’s two-dimensional face was plastered to the wall. 

Thorne had been skeptical about this show from the beginning. It mostly consisted of this girl, Lizzie, sitting in her room, talking about her life. There was no action. But Cress said that she’d always liked it because it was something that she could have created all on her own from the satellite. If she had had friends up there that is. 

Thorne liked to picture Cress making her own net dramas all from the tiny satellite and it filled his heart with a somber pang. He wondered if she would be interested in making a net drama with him now. She would be good at it, and he had old classmates back in L.A. who were producers and directors now. Maybe he could star in it. He’d always wanted to be famous. 

Thorne sat back against the headboard and listened to Cress’s singing from the shower. She was singing that second-era aria that first heard her sing back in Africa. It was her favorite. He heard the water shut off and a few moments later, Cress emerged in her pajamas, a towel wrapped around her hair. Her hair was nearly as short as his was—she kept cutting it shorter and shorter every time she got a haircut—but she still wrapped the towel around it out of habit. 

She hopped into bed, snuggling up beside him and he played the net drama. 

~ ~ ~

Cress couldn’t hide her amusement as they ended the fourth episode of the night. 

“I knew Wickham was up to no good,” said Thorne, shaking his head. 

“You did not,” she said. “You’re a lot like him, you know.”

“I am actually insulted, Cress. How can you say that?”

She laughed. “Well, he’s got your charm if not your heart.”

“If I ever blackmail an innocent girl in an attempt to collect money that I gambled away, you have permission to shoot me in the foot… oh, spades, now that I say that out loud, that sounds like something I totally would’ve done as a teenager.”

“Well, at least you’re like Darcy in the respect that you’ve learned from your mistakes,” said Cress. 

Thorne looked at her sheepishly. “If I ever revert back to my unsavory ways, you have my permission to shoot me in the foot.”

“I doubt it will come to that, Carswell,” she said, patting him on the chest. He turned the netscreen off. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” he said, placing a kiss on her forehead. “Good night, Cress.”

She settled into her usual place, her head on Thorne’s shoulder. Just as their breaths fell into rhythm, Cress’s port screen lit up on the bedside table and an alert sounded. She rolled over and looked to see what the alert was for. 

Letumosis Outbreak:  
Kingston, Jamaica, American Republic.  
05:34 U.T., 15 NOV 129 E.T.

“Well, it looks like we’ll be heading to Luna first thing tomorrow,” she said. “There’s an outbreak in Jamaica.”

“Jamaica?” Thorne said, a trace of worry lacing his voice. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, in Kingston.”

He sighed deeply. “Aces, I never thought I’d have to go back there.”

“What happened to you in Jamaica?” Cress asked. 

“You read my file, didn’t you?”

“Extensively.”

“Then, I’m sure you read what I did after stealing the Rampion from the American Republic Air Force?”

Cress did remember reading about Carswell Thorne’s path of self-destruction. Shortly after stealing the Rampion, he had marooned his crew on an island in the Caribbean. An island right off the coast of Jamaica.


	2. Kingston

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cress and Thorne arrive in Jamaica

They made quick and efficient work of loading up a shipment of the antidote on Luna. 

On the trip back to Earth, Thorne was quieter than usual. Cress tried to make cookies and this time they turned out a little lumpy, but not overcooked. She brought a plate of them over to Thorne who was staring intently at Earth from the pilot seat in the control room. His hands were on the controls as if he were flying, but Cress noticed that the autopilot light was on. 

“Carswell?” she asked. “Are you okay?”

“Hmm?” He didn’t take his eyes away from the window. He didn’t blink. 

“I made cookies,” she said. “And I didn’t burn them, this time.”

He turned and looked at her as if noticing she was there for the first time. 

“Cress, I…” he trailed off and then shook himself of whatever fog he was in and gave her a bright smile. “They look delicious.”

“Want to eat them while we watch The Lizzie Bennet Diaries?” she asked gently.

He relaxed. “Sure thing.”

Cress didn’t need to ask him why he was acting so strangely. He was obviously anxious about returning to the scene of his most heartless crime and Cress didn’t blame him. But she also wanted to remind him that he was not the man he once was. He was a hero now. He had friends that loved him. He was going to be the legal owner of the Rampion in just a few more months. 

She pressed a kiss to his temple as they sat together watching the net drama. He gave her shoulder a squeeze in response, tilting his head towards her. Adoration bloomed in her chest. How lovely it was to love and know in these small gestures that she was loved in return. 

~ ~ ~

Thorne woke up early the next morning. Checking his port screen he noted there was an hour to spare before he had to get up to land the Rampion. Dread and guilt and anxiety wormed around in his stomach as he stared up at the ceiling. His left arm was heavy with the familiar weight of Cress’s head. She curled up beside him like a kitten, one leg hooked around his. He listened to the steady rise and fall of her breaths trying to calm himself down. 

He used to consider himself at fault for their deaths. That was until he survived two days blind in the Sahara desert with the most inexperienced traveling companion on Earth and Luna. If he could survive that, his old crew could survive a quick swim to Jamaica. 

He picked up his port screen and searched for their names on the net. 

CATY NGUYEN  
ID: #0050864608  
BORN 12 NOV 105 T.E., AMERICAN REPUBLIC  
FF 5 MEDIA HITS, REVERSE CHRON  
POSTED 6 JUL 129 T.E.: EX-AR AIR FORCE CADET, CATY NGUYEN, RECENTLY RELEASED FROM SOCAL PRISON AFTER A THREE YEAR SENTENCE...

GUSTAVO SANCHEZ  
ID: #0069659760  
BORN 7 MAY 106 T.E., AMERICAN REPUBLIC  
FF 3 MEDIA HITS, REVERSE CHRON  
POSTED 6 JUL 129 T.E.: EX-AR AIR FORCE CADET, GUSTAVO SANCHEZ, RELEASED FROM SOCAL PRISON AFTER A THREE YEAR SENTENCE...

GRACE O’BRIAN  
ID: #0058947594  
BORN 30 JAN 106 T.E., AMERICAN REPUBLIC  
FF 6 MEDIA HITS, REVERSE CHRON  
POSTED 6 JULY 129 T.E.: EX-AR AIR FORCE CAPTAIN, GRACE O’BRIAN, RELEASED FROM SOCAL PRISON AFTER A THREE YEAR SENTENCE...

So they were all still alive. The knowledge somehow didn’t make him feel any better. He opened up an article about their recent releases from prison and confirmed that their crimes were military desertion and grand theft Rampion.

His port screen buzzed. A reminder to land the Rampion flashed across the screen. He slipped his arm out from under Cress’s head and made his way to the control room. 

~ ~ ~

Cress woke up to the Jamaican sunshine coming in through the window. She marveled at sleeping through one of Thorne’s landings. He was getting better at them with every location they traveled to, but she didn’t think sleeping through one would be possible for another year at least. 

“Good morning, Cress!” Thorne said meeting Cress halfway across the galley with two steaming mugs of coffee. He handed one to her. 

“Morning, Carswell,” she said, taking the mug. He seemed to be in a much better mood than last night.

They ate breakfast and went out to meet the doctors and scientists in town to deliver the antidote.

~ ~ ~ 

Cress wiped her hands on the legs of her pants as they unloaded the last crate of letumosis antidotes. 

“Well, Captain,” she said. “What do you say we make our next stop Greenland?”

“You don’t want to go sightseeing here?” he asked. They always went sightseeing in whatever town they stopped in unless there was a pressing emergency. 

“I thought you’d be eager to leave this place considering…” she trailed off.

“Nonsense,” he said. “I made it my mission to show you the world and we’re not skipping over a single place.”

“Well, if it’s alright with you,” she said. 

He flashed her a dazzling Carswell Thorne smile. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

They strolled down the streets taking in the sights. They visited the Bob Marley Museum and stopped for a picnic at Emancipation Park. As the sun dipped downward in the sky, they walked the halls of the Holy Trinity Cathedral. 

“You know, they have some great snorkeling on the other side of the island,” said Thorne as they walked back to the hospital where the Rampion was parked. “We could fly over there tonight and make a day of it tomorrow.”

“You don’t mind staying another day?” asked Cress, suspiciously. She glanced at Thorne, but he had stopped in his tracks and had a look of horror on his face. 

“Wh-Where…” he opened his mouth and closed it again, his face was white. 

Cress followed his gaze to the hospital roof. Empty. 

“My ship,” Thorne said, although it came out as more of a hoarse squeak. “My ship is—” He sank to his knees. “Gone.”


	3. Old Friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cress and Thorne track down the Rampion

Cress had her port screen out and with a few swipes of her fingers was tracking the Rampion’s location in no time. According to the GPS tracking system, it was halfway to Montego Bay, on the other side of the island. 

Thorne was still kneeling in the street when the hover arrived to take them to Montego Bay. Cress gave him a hand and he got shakily to his feet. 

“Who would want to steal our ship?” she asked as they rode through the streets of Kingston. 

“Who wouldn’t?” Thorne responded distraughtly. 

“Most people don’t want to steal things, Carswell.”

He sighed despondently. “This is my worst nightmare come true. I haven’t even finished paying it off yet!” He threw his hands up and dramatically collapsed into the seat of the hover.

Cress patted his arm reassuringly. “We’ll get it back. Look,” she held up her port screen. “It’s parked on Sunset Drive.”

Sunset Drive was a long street on a tiny strip of land at the very edge of Montego Bay. The houses and hotels along the beach fell away as they approached the cargo ship. The hover stopped at the end of the road. Cress started towards the Rampion, but Thorne caught her by the arm and gave her a warning look. 

“We don’t know who they are or what they want,” he said, slipping his handgun out of his waistband. 

“It could just be kids pulling a prank,” she said. “Remember Texas?”

He looked uneasy. “Better safe than sorry.”

They approached the ship cautiously, but as they got close, the ramp lowered and a tall strong-looking woman marched down with a severe expression on her face. Somewhere between contempt and satisfaction. Thorne stiffened, lowering the gun. 

“Carswell Thorne,” said the woman, folding her arms. “It’s been a long time.” She had brown skin and wore her hair closely cropped to her head. She looked like she belonged on the Rampion with her gray t-shirt and cargo pants. She didn’t seem put off by the gun in Thorne’s hand.

“So it has, O’Brian,” Thorne said in response. 

The woman stopped at the edge of the ramp and unfolded her arms, gesturing inside. “Why don’t you and your friend come in? We have a lot of catching up to do.”

“Carswell, who is she?” Cress whispered. 

“An old friend,” he whispered back cryptically. He followed the woman inside and Cress took his arm in an attempt to comfort him as much as herself. 

The woman led them into the cargo bay where two other people sat on boxes. One was a skinny girl with a spiky ponytail who looked like Cinder’s evil twin and the other was a large man who looked like he would stand a good chance against Wolf in a fight. 

“Thorne,” said the man. “You haven’t aged a day.”

“I can’t say the same for you, Sanchez,” Thorne responded. “Those gray hairs are new, aren’t they? What’s it been? Three years?”

Oh no, thought Cress. He was nervous. 

“Four and a half,” said the skinny girl. Cress noticed for the first time, that she was holding a bowie knife, the blade glinting menacingly when she spoke. 

“So what’s the reunion for?” Thorne asked. “You missed me that much? I have to say I’m flattered, but my partner and I are a little busy saving the world from a deadly virus, so I can’t stay for long.”

Sanchez narrowed his eyes. The woman—O’Brian—folded her arms again. 

“Oh we’ve heard about your heroic escapades,” she said with a sneer. “Yes, we’ve heard all about how Carswell Thorne escaped prison with Princess Selene and aided her revolution. How you bought your way out of trouble with false acts of heroism. And now you’re stuck as Luna’s errand boy delivering the antidotes and vaccines like a good little soldier. How did they tame you, I wonder?” She was pacing slowly around the room as she spoke. 

Cress bristled, but Thorne remained calm. 

“It’s a fitting punishment to be sure,” said O’Brian. “If you had deserted by yourself.” She turned sharply to face them. “But you had to drag us down with you and we haven’t been so lucky.”

“What can I say?” Thorne said casually. “The universe loves me.”

“I loved you, you bastard,” said the skinny girl, leaping to her feet and giving Thorne a death glare. 

“Aces, Caty,” said Thorne with a nervous chuckle. “This is awkward. I’m kind of with someone else now,” he wrapped an arm around Cress’s shoulders. 

“Hi,” Cress said in the most non-threatening way she could. 

Caty growled. 

“You made many promises to us, Thorne,” said the Captain. “Promises you failed to keep. Well, now it’s time for you to deliver.”

“No can do, O’Brian,” said Thorne. “I’m a changed man.” His tone wasn’t lighthearted anymore.

“I thought you might say that,” said O’Brian. “Sanchez?”

Sanchez stood up from the crate he was sitting on, his gigantic frame filling up the space. He cracked his knuckles. 

Thorne raised his gun. “I really don’t want to shoot you, buddy,” he said. Another gun clicked and O’Brian was aiming a pistol at Thorne. 

“I have no such qualms,” said O’Brian.

“Cress,” Thorne said out of the corner of his mouth, eyes darting from Sanchez to O’Brian. “Fruit Salad.”

Cress reacted instantaneously to the code word, slipping easily past Sanchez before he caught on to what she was doing. She dashed for the door, as a gunshot went off, a stinging sensation cut across her arm, as she pulled the door shut behind her, frantically typing a keycode. Caty had thrown the Bowie knife at her as she left the cargo bay and it clattered to the floor. Cress swiped at the blood on her arm as she ran for the control room, yelling commands at the computer. The engines powered up and she jumped into the seat for takeoff. 

Thorne had tried to teach her how to fly the Rampion, but on their first day of lessons, it became immediately clear to Cress that he had hardly a clue what he was doing. Carswell Thorne did indeed seem to run on luck and luck alone. Scarlet, however, had been a wonderful teacher; she was actually able to provide the names of each control dial and button during her lessons. 

Cress strapped herself in and lifted off, quickly shooting into the sky. Fruit Salad was a code word that Cress didn’t think they would have to put into effect in reality ever, but she trusted Thorne knew what he was doing, or at least, he would be lucky enough to survive. 

Once the Rampion was high enough in the air, she got fancy with her flying. First a barrel roll, then a plummet. She kept the artificial gravity turned off. What would seem like a random jumble to the three trespassers, was actually a carefully choreographed dance. She counted in time to the song playing in her head. Three. Four. Five. Six. Thorne had the advantage as long as he remembered the order of operations and anticipated them in advance. 

Once the Rampion’s dance was complete, she put the ship into orbit and pulled up the surveillance footage of the cargo bay. The sight made her stomach drop. 

O’Brian was hauling herself to her feet, wincing at a painful arm. Caty dropped down from the ceiling where she had been holding on to a rail. Sanchez was slumped in a corner, but breathing steadily. 

Thorne was lying motionless on the ground. He was turned away from the camera and his arms were hanging limply in front of him. O’Brian picked his gun up from the floor, pointing both guns at him. Cress waited with her, counting the heartbeats, waiting for him to stir, to get up, anything.  
Three. Four. Five. Six. Nothing. 

She gasped suddenly, realizing she had been holding her breath. On the screen, O’Brian nudged him with her foot, but he didn’t stir. She walked up to the surveillance camera, looking Cress right in the eyes. 

“I suggest you come turn yourself in,” said O’Brian, her voice tinny through the speakers. “Or you’ll end up like Thorne.”

Cress swallowed the hard lump in her throat as tears threatened to spill down her face. He was alive, she told herself, he had to be alive.


	4. Mutiny

Cress addressed a comm on the Rampion’s communications link to Liam Kinney. She had dropped her port screen in the process of fleeing the cargo bay. 

SOS - 3 TRESPASSERS - ARMED AND DANGEROUS - THORNE IS

She didn’t know how to finish that sentence. 

THORNE IS INJURED.

She pressed send. She took a deep breath to calm her nerves and looked back at the video surveillance. O’Brian was pacing, while Caty checked on Sanchez. He was sitting up, rubbing his head, but he seemed alright. Thorne was still unmoving.

An alert brought her attention back to the netscreen. The comm had failed to send. Cress pulled up a diagnostics check and tested the connection. The Rampion was offline. She only had to troubleshoot for a minute before she learned that the issue wasn’t software. She opened a panel in the console and saw the frayed ends of cut cables. 

If only Cinder had taught her some mechanical skills. She thought of comming Cinder, before realizing that if she could comm Cinder, she wouldn’t need Cinder’s help in the first place. 

“Come on, Cress,” she said out loud to herself. She was out of options and Thorne was lying on the cargo bay floor.

She ran to the washroom where the first aid kit was and bandaged up her arm. It wasn’t a deep cut, but it still stung when she moved her shoulder. She took the kit with her and picked up the Bowie knife on the way back to the cargo bay. 

The doors slide open with an angry hiss.

“Drop the knife,” said O’Brian pointing a gun at her as soon as she entered. 

Cress raised her hands up in surrender but did not let go of the knife or the first aid kit. 

“Drop the knife,” O’Brian repeated, cocking the gun. Cress squeaked and knelt down, setting the knife carefully on the floor, scared to make a movement that was too quick. 

“I could use that kit over here, Captain,” said Caty. 

Cress froze. 

“You heard her,” said O’Brian to Cress. “Hand over the kit.”

“But…” Cress eyed the gun pointed at her and didn’t make another protest. She slid the kit across the floor to Caty who began rifling through it. Still kneeling, she looked at Thorne. He was facing away from her, but she could see the rise and fall of his breathing and she felt a small wave of relief wash over her. 

O’Brian waited for Caty to finish with the kit before she picked up the Bowie knife from the floor and handed it to her. Sanchez, now having his wounds tended to, picked up Thorne’s gun from a nearby crate. He nodded to O’Brian, who nodded back and departed to some other part of the ship. 

Sanchez picked up some rope from a nearby bench and Caty approached Thorne with the kit. 

“Was he shot?” Cress asked, but Caty ignored her, rolling him over onto his back. Cress scanned his shirt for blood, but there was none. He had a welt on his forehead that would swell into a nasty bruise pretty soon, but other than that, he looked fine. Unconscious, but fine.

Sanchez approached her with the rope and grabbed her by the arm, lifting her to her feet with ease. She cried out in protest, but he bound her wrists together before she could make an escape attempt. Even if she had the time to react, he was three times her size, and she knew she would not have stood a chance against his strength. He set her back down and tied her ankles together for good measure.

“What do you want from us?” Cress asked. Caty was dabbing Thorne’s forehead with a cloth.

“That’s between us and Thorne,” said Caty. She gave Thone’s cheek a little slap. “Wake up, wingnut.”

“I would appreciate it if you didn’t call my boyfriend a wingnut,” muttered Cress. 

“Aw, honey,” said Caty in a way that sounded like she was mocking her. “Whatever it is that you have going on with him, it won’t last. It never does.”

Cress bit back the urge to tell her that they had been dating for two years and things were going great. 

Caty shook Thorne roughly by the shoulders and slapped him across the cheek again. He groaned. 

“Wake up, idiot,” she said. “Sanchez, get the ropes.”

Sanchez was at her side with more ropes as Thorne came to. He blinked his eyes rapidly and brought a hand to his head. 

“Did we make it?” he asked groggily. 

“You’re alive,” said Caty. She ushered Sanchez forward and he tied Thorne’s feet together. 

“Is this… is this a Rampion?” said Thorne. Sitting up suddenly and looking about in wonder. “We did it! We actually did it!” He looked at Caty. “Caty, I could kiss you!”

Cress’s stomach sank. The all too familiar feeling of Queen Levana’s coronation came back to hit her full force. But Caty wasn’t Lunar. She wasn’t using a glamour and Thorne said her name. He knew who he was talking to. Why did he say that?

“Don’t try that on me,” said Caty angrily. “I’m not falling for your games again.”

“Games?” He echoed dazedly. His eyes alighted on Cress for the first time. “Who’s the cutie?”

“Carswell,” Cress said, urging him to remember her. 

“Have we met?” Thorne asked, giving her a tilt of the head and a cocked eyebrow. He glanced back at Caty. “Seriously, who is she?”

Caty looked thoughtful for a moment. “You hit your head pretty hard, didn’t you?”

“Aces, it sure feels like it,” he said, wincing. 

“What’s the last thing you remember?”


	5. Cadet Thorne

4 AND A HALF YEARS AGO. AMERICAN REPUBLIC AIR FORCE MESS HALL.

Thorne waited for the Serv.11 to dump a glob of mashed potatoes on his tray so he could go sit down with his friends. Well, marks would be a more accurate description of the people he ate lunch with. Though for as long as he had been making friends and planning cons, there had never been much of a difference. 

He sat down next to Cadet Caty Nguyen, slinging an arm around her and smiling at Cadet Sanchez who sat across the table, taking up two seats. 

“Come one, Thorne,” said Caty, slipping out from his embrace. “You’ll get us in trouble.”

Thorne rolled his eyes. “Did you think about my offer?” he said to the two of them. Sanchez nodded. A man of few words, that one. 

“It’s enticing,” said Caty. “But there’s one hole in your little plan.”

“Nothing gets past you, Caty,” Thorne said flirtatiously, sneaking a hand around her waist. She grabbed his hand away, but mischievous delight glittered in her eyes. 

“You don’t have the rank to access the hangar. We need a captain. A real captain.”

Thorne smiled. “Come with me, there’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

Captain O’Brian was young. She had been in Thorne’s class at the academy and her promotion was very recent. Despite seeming like the perfect dutiful soldier to the authority figures, Thorne knew she played Royals in his gambling rings. She was good. If he didn’t cheat, she would have beaten him on multiple occasions, and sometimes he thought she could see right through him. 

One day, she won the game. And when he saw the hunger in her eyes as he transferred the univs to her account, he knew he’d made the right choice. He thought he had better be careful with her, though. She was still his superior officer and if he spoke too soon, he might find himself cleaning the latrines and never getting out of this prison at all. But when he finally talked to her about his plan, he found that he had underestimated her discontent. She was as restless and tired as the rest of them, though she had been much better at hiding it. 

“Absolutely not,” she said when Thorne had finished laying out the details of his plan to Caty, Sanchez, and Captain O'Brian. “It’s way too risky. If we’re doing this, we’re doing it right.” She leaned forward on the table in the laundry room where they were gathered. “I can get you all on a crew. Once we’re further away from here, then it’ll be safe to run.”

“It’s gotta be a Rampion,” said Thorne. “A 214 Rampion, Class 11.3.”

“You don’t want something a little sleeker?” O’Brian said. Rampions were clunky cargo ships and not the most conventionally attractive spacecraft out there.

“It’s got to be a Rampion,” Thorne repeated. 

O’Brian came through and the four of them joined a crew with four other cadets and another captain, traveling to a base in Argentina. 

O’Brian’s plan was to take over the ship once they were in the Caribbean, ditch the rest of the crew and from there they could go wherever they wanted. Thorne agreed it was a good plan, but what O’Brian didn’t know was that Thorne had no intention of taking her, Caty, and Sanchez with him when he ditched the rest of the crew. He couldn’t be the captain of the Rampion with O’Brian around. They were all simply a means to an end, and that end was getting as far away from the American Republic Airforce and its members as he could. 

The last thing Thorne remembered was waiting outside the control room with Caty. Her hand clasped tightly in his, gun drawn in the other, waiting for O’Brian’s cue. 

And after that? Nothing.

~ ~ ~

NOW

Thorne blinked away tears as Caty shone a light in his eyes. She had taken him to the med bay to check him for a concussion. They had successfully stolen the ship, but something had gone wrong. She said he had amnesia. 

It was jarring, knowing that chunks of time were missing. Hours, maybe a couple of days was just empty space. He remembered the boredom, the restlessness. The gambling ring he ran in the air force didn’t give him a thrill like it did when he ran one in school. There was no goal to drive him forward. His five-year plan had been thrown out the window. He was trapped in the place he always swore he’d never end up. 

But somehow he’d gotten the ship he’d always wanted. Caty and Sanchez had done it. They were free. He still didn’t have a clear answer to who the girl tied up in the cargo bay was, but she wouldn’t be a problem once he enacted the next, secret part of his plan. 

“So, where are we headed, Captain?” Caty asked him as she clicked off the little penlight. “You do have a concussion, by the way.” 

He racked his concussed brain for the answer. She wanted a cut of the money he promised her. He could see the numbers of his bank account. Accessible only with his ID chip or password. The ID chip he had cut out before boarding the stolen Rampion. The password he had forgotten.

He closed his eyes in frustration. He knew where his password was. Typed out in his old port screen, tucked inside a box in the closet of his childhood home.

“Los Angeles,” he said. But wait, Caty didn’t need to know that. She wasn’t supposed to be here. “But first we need to make a stop in Jamaica,” he said. 

Caty laughed darkly. “I don’t think so, Thorne.”

His heart caught in his throat. Did she know what he was planning? He laughed. “Afraid of a little sunshine, Caty? I can’t access the money without going to Jamaica first,” he lied. 

“That’s a lie,” she said, holding up a syringe of morphine. “You’re not getting rid of us that easily.”

“Getting rid of you?" He put on his most innocent expression. "Caty, you’re my girl. We’re going to go see the ancient ruins of Old New York together.”

“I know what your plan is, Thorne. You’re going to abandon us in Jamaica and take all the money for yourself.”

“No,” he said, trying to play it off. “Where would you get that idea?”

“What’s in Los Angeles?” she asked. “Where’s the money?”

“My bank account,” he said. “Only accessible with my ID chip, which…” he held up his wrist to show her the wound. To his surprise there was just a scar, old and faded. He shook his head. “I feel like I’m missing something.”

“Oh, you are,” said Caty cooly. “But not your chip.” She grabbed his wrist suddenly and pulled out a scalpel, cutting into his flesh without warning. Thorne cried out in pain as she dug the chip from his wrist. It popped out into her hand. Caty pocketed the chip and shoved a bandage into his hands. Thorne wrapped it around his wrist quickly, wincing and groaning. 

“You can’t—” He cried. She shoved the syringe into his arm. He gasped. 

“For the pain,” she said, pulling the empty syringe from his arm.


	6. Marooned

Cress struggled against her bindings. Sanchez had tied them very snugly. They had left her here alone, hauling Thorne to his feet and taking him away. He had not known who she was, but perhaps this was a survival tactic on his part. This was his old crew, the ones he had marooned on his path of self-destruction. Maybe he was playing dumb for a reason. But it would not be the first time Thorne got brain damage from being jostled around in Earth’s atmosphere. This time it was her fault. 

The doors opened and Sanchez dragged Thorne into the room by his arms. He was giggling and saying how he always liked Sanchez best and made a joke about some incident they had both been a part of in the air force. 

Sanchez dumped him in the middle of the room and left. Thorne’s wrist was bandaged and he seemed loopy. 

“Well, hello there,” he said, his eyes rolling up to look at her. “Come here often?”

“Carswell, are you okay? What did they do to you?” she asked, worriedly. Sanchez was gone, and yet he was still acting like she was some pretty stranger. 

“Me?” he said. “Me? Who’s me? Mimi Lakehouse?” He burst into a giggling fit. Mimi Lakehouse was a very pretty netdrama star with a prolific career in action space adventures from a couple decades ago.

“Carswell,” Cress said anxiously. Something was wrong with him. He’d been drugged or hit on the head again. And she was starting to suspect the amnesia thing wasn’t an act. “Snap out of it,” she said desperately. “What do they want from us? Where are we going? Do you know anything?”

“I know you are the prettiest girl I’ve ever laid eyes on,” he said seriously. Then he burst out laughing again. “Except for Mimi Lakehouse of course.”

Cress sighed. Sanchez hadn’t bothered to tie Thorne up. Probably because he knew that Thorne wasn’t in any shape to do anything useful or threatening. 

“Carswell, can you sit up? Can you untie me?”

He rolled his head around to face her. “I know you from somewhere,” he said slowly. 

“Yes,” she said hopefully. “It’s me, Cress.”

“Cress,” he tried the name out in his mouth. “Did we go to school together?”

“No, we—Cinder brought us together. Remember?” 

“Cinder, Cinder,” he closed his eyes. A few moments later, Cress realized he was falling asleep. 

“Carswell?” she called. No response. 

Suddenly there was a turbulent rumble from the floor. The Rampion was landing. Cress scooted towards him, thinking she should see if he had his knife on him. The doors opened and O’Brian entered the cargo bay, flanked by Caty and Sanchez. O’Brian hit the button that lowered the ramp and the ground tilted beneath Cress and Thorne as the ramp lowered down to the ground. Outside was a rocky landscape. Waves crashed against the craggy cliffs and salty wind whipped into the ship, rustling Cress’s hair. 

“What’s going on?” Cress asked. Were they going to leave her on this barren island?

“Thorne made himself useful,” said O’Brian. “We no longer need him. And we never needed you, no offense. Wait, is he asleep? Nguyen, what did you do to him?”

Caty shrugged. Thorne was lying sprawled on his back with his mouth hanging open. 

“Nevermind,” said O’Brian. “Welcome to Alcatraz. You can let him know when he wakes up that we marooned him just like marooned us and we’re taking what’s owed to us.”

“You don’t have to do this,” said Cress. “He’s different now. He’s a good man. If you just asked, I’m sure he’d give you anything you wanted.”

“What we want is revenge,” said O’Brian. “And reparations.”

“But—” said Cress. 

“Enough talking,” said O’Brian. “Sanchez?”

Sanchez grabbed Thorne by the legs and hauled him down the ramp, depositing him on the rocks outside. Then he returned for Cress, lifting her up in his arms and carrying her down to Thorne’s side. 

Cress watched helplessly as the ramp closed back up. The engines hummed on and the Rampion took off over their heads, disappearing in a few short minutes. Cress looked around. Stony ruins loomed up ahead on the small island. In the distance, maybe a couple of miles away was a city on a long strip of land that stretched as far as Cress could see. But the water was dark and choppy. It would be no easy swim. 

She turned her attention back to Thorne. He wasn’t swimming anywhere if he didn’t wake up soon. The sun was setting. They needed to find shelter. She needed to get these blasted ropes off her. She scooted towards his boot where he kept a knife, relieved to find it still there. Fortunately, her arms had been tied in front of her and she grabbed the knife and began to saw at the ropes around her ankle. It didn’t take long before she had freed herself completely. 

She knelt at Thorne’s side. For a second she imagined herself as a mermaid, gazing upon the face of her half-drowned pirate lover. 

“Wake up,” she whispered, a hand on his cheek. She patted him gently. His eyes fluttered open. “Carswell?”

“You know,” he said slowly. “Most people call me Thorne,” he said. “Or Captain.”

She sighed. “We’ve been marooned, Captain.”

“Marooned? Like the color? I see a purple sky, though I’d say it’s more of a lilac or indigo.”

“Can you stand?” She asked, taking his hands and pulling him to his feet. He swayed around dizzily, and she draped his arm over her shoulder so he could use her as a crutch. 

“We’re wounded soldiers making our way home,” she said to herself, gritting her teeth with determination. There was an abandoned building up aways. They would have to stay there for the night. And in the morning hopefully whatever drugs were in Thorne’s system would wear off and he’d remember who she was and know what to do. 

They entered the building, making their way through rows of barred cells. It looked like a dungeon out of a fantasy novel or an ancient zoo.

They found a place with four walls to keep out the damp wind. The ground was cold and hard and Cress thought she heard the patterings of nocturnal creatures, but Thorne had no trouble passing out, and she used him as a pillow. She clung to him against the darkness and willed herself to sleep.


	7. Square One

Thorne awoke to a splitting headache and a warm body pressed against his. He was in a decrepit room made of stone and smelling of damp mold and rat droppings. A very pretty girl was sleeping in his arms. Her honey-blonde hair tickled his neck pleasantly. 

Was he hungover? He couldn’t remember how he got here or who this girl was. He brushed her cheek absentmindedly with his knuckles. It seemed a strangely familiar thing to do as if they’d always been here together. He jolted, noticing two of his fingers had been replaced with metal cyborg digits.

The girl’s eyes opened and she looked up at him. He thought she looked a bit hopeful. How curious. 

“Hello,” he said.

“Hello,” she said hesitantly. “How are you feeling?”

He winced. “Hungover. It must’ve been a wild night, huh?”

Her expression turned sorrowful. “You were in an accident,” she said, pushing herself up with one arm. He felt a chill when she left him. An accident. He glanced at his metal fingers. “Do you… What do you remember?”

The hum of the Rampion. Caty’s hand. Breaths in and out as they waited outside the cockpit. 

“I was traveling to Los Angeles,” Thorne said slowly. This girl didn’t need to know he was a military deserter and a thief. He wasn’t even sure if his thievery had been successful. Where was his ship? “Where are we?” He asked.

“Alcatraz,” she said. 

He laughed. Alcatraz, right. He had gone to prison because of a crime he had committed. He thought this and yet there was no memory to back up this thought.

“What’s the date?” The girl asked.

“Spades if I know,” he said. “End of May?”

“Year?”

“Year?” He paused. She wasn’t asking him to know, she was asking him to see if he knew. “You’re starting to freak me out a little.”

“I’m just checking up on your mental faculties,” she said. 

“My mental faculties are fine,” he said, suddenly restless. He sat up, his head throbbing. “It’s the twenty-sixth—maybe seventh—of May 125 T.E.”

The girl was quiet. 

“Right?” He said unnerved at her lack of a response. 

She shook her head. “I don’t want to shock you,” she said. 

Thorne felt sick. 

“It’s November,” she said carefully. Thorne’s stomach turned. Six months. Six months were gone. “The year is 129.” She continued. 

Thorne leaned over and puked.

~ ~ ~

Cress struggled to follow Thorne as he speed-walked across the island. After puking up barely anything he’d excused himself for some air. Cress didn’t think it was a good idea to let him go off alone in this condition, but her short legs were not letting her catch up to him. He finally stopped on a small rock that jutted over the water and stared at the land across the foggy sea. Skyscrapers jutted up in the distance like the spines of a deep-sea fish. 

She approached him carefully, keeping a bit of distance and not saying a word. She was glad for her jacket as the wind whipped her hair around her face. She felt like a second era sailor’s wife, awaiting the return of her husband from the cruel sea.

“How long have we been here?” He asked suddenly. 

“Just the night,” said Cress. 

“And, um, what’s your name?” he seemed a bit embarrassed not to know it.

“I’m Cress,” she said softly.

“Cress,” he said, feeling out her name. “Right. I think I knew that.”

“We need to get to that land over there,” said Cress. “Our ship was stolen and we should get you to a doctor.”

“We can hop a ride with the tours,” said Thorne. 

“Tours?” asked Cress curiously.

“You said this is Alcatraz, right? There’ll be tours from San Francisco all day.”

“Wait, you know where we are?”

“Of course, who doesn’t know where Alcatraz is? You’re not from around here, are you?”

“I’m Lunar,” she said. 

“Lunar?” There was a hint of alarm in his voice. “How… Nevermind. The less I know the better. We’ll have to be sneaky about getting back to land then. Oh but you can mind control people, right? You did it on me earlier.”

Cress raised her eyebrows in surprise. “I actually don’t have the gift,” she said. 

“Well, that can’t be right,” he said, thinking. Cress smiled to herself. She was prepared for Thorne not to remember that he loved her, but it seemed he didn’t need his memories to still feel strangely drawn to her. “How long have we known each other?”

“Three years,” she said. 

“And… what is the nature of our relationship?”

Cress had watched a lot of net dramas. She had seen the amnesia trope played out hundreds of times. Usually, if two characters were in a relationship, and one of them forgot the other, the person with their memories intact pretended like they were just friends under the assumption that revealing a romantic connection without the amnesiac remembering it was immoral. Cress thought that might have a bit of truth to it, but real life was different from the net dramas and she thought Thorne deserved to know the truth.

“We’re kind of dating,” said Cress shyly. 

“Ah, I see,” said Thorne, he searched her face as if trying to remember her. “For three years?”

“Yes,” said Cress. “But listen, you don’t have your memories, so I don’t expect us to just jump back to where we were, you know? I mean, let’s just consider ourselves friends and we can work back up to… or whatever you want,” she said. 

He looked guilty. “You seem really sweet, Cress.”

“Oh no, I know what you’re thinking,” she said. He looked surprised. “You’re not going to break my heart or disappoint me. We’ve been over this.”

He looked at her suspiciously. “Are you sure, you don’t have the lunar mind-reading magic?”

“It’s called bioelectric manipulation and no. I’m what they call a shell. I’m just like you except I can’t be manipulated by lunars.”

“Well, that’s pretty cool,” he said. 

“Thanks.”

“Okay,” said Thorne. “So I am stranded on Alcatraz Island with amnesia and a lunar shell who claims to be my girlfriend. This sounds like a dream I had once. Although, I must admit there was a lot less puking and a lot more making out.”

Cress stifled a laugh. “Right, and we need to get to the mainland soon because our ship and your ID chip were stolen by some old friends of yours and they’re going after your bank account next.”

“Old friends?” Thorne asked whirling around. “What old friends?”


	8. Escape from Alcatraz

Thorne paced anxiously. So he had successfully stolen the Rampion four years ago, he’d marooned his crew in Jamaica, and now O’Brian, Caty, and Sanchez wanted revenge. Cress had filled him in as best she could. Apparently, he was a war hero now and not a wanted criminal. He’d lost his fingers in a battle against the former lunar Queen herself. He was leasing the Rampion legally and would own it outright in a few short months. 

They sat on the rocky shore waiting for a tour to come by as she recounted, in broad terms, the tale of the Lunar Revolution. Whenever he asked her about details regarding their own interactions though, she blushed and gave him brief answers, leaving him more curious than he was before asking. 

When she spoke about him, she painted him in such a kind light. He was used to being referred to as a delinquent or troublemaker, a cheat or a crook. It all felt very out of character for him, but Cress seemed trustworthy. She had an air of earnest optimism and he got the sense she was the kind of person who would feel awful about lying. Still, hearing her talk about him made him a bit sad. The person she was describing was not him. He certainly wished he was that brave and heroic, but the reality was that he was a self-centered con artist only motivated by the next stolen treasure.

They had no way to tell the time; the sky was cloudy and gray, so Thorne could only guess that it had been a couple of hours when they saw the ferry approaching. It glided swiftly above the water, packed with tourists. 

If they played it right, Cress should have no trouble getting on the ferry, but Thorne would have a harder time without his ID chip. They hiked back up to the ruins of the prison and looked for a place to hide. 

Thorne tugged open the door of an old storage closet. It had nearly rusted off its hinges, but he was able to pull it closed behind them. They waited in the dark for signs of life until finally, they heard the chatter of a crowd and the magnified voice of the tour guide android as it led them through the ancient halls of Alcatraz Prison. 

Cress stopped him when he set his hand on the door handle. 

“You’ve got a giant bruise on your forehead,” she said, taking a red bandana from one of the pockets in her cargo pants. He bent his head down and she wrapped it around his forehead like a headband. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s go.”

Thorne took Cress’s hand and slipped out of the storage closet, joining with the back of the crowd. An old lady startled when she saw them, but Thorne gave her a friendly smile and she didn’t raise an alarm. When the guide droid stopped at a cell to talk about the conditions kept in the prison, Thorne maneuvered himself and Cress past a few people to get closer to the front in order to fully assimilate themselves in with the crowd. 

Time ticked down to the end of the tour. The group filed out of the prison and walked back to the ferry. No one scanned their wrists and they found a bench at the very back and sat down. 

“We did it,” Cress whispered excitedly. She gave Thorne’s hand a squeeze. 

“Don’t get too comfortable,” he said lowly. He kept his eyes fixed on a woman talking angrily to the guide droid at the front of the ferry. She was gesturing to the seats. There wasn’t an empty one in sight. The guide droid began making its way down the aisle, scanning people’s wrists. 

Cress tensed beside him. Thorne’s brain was spinning. The ferry was so small, there was nowhere to go. If the guide droid tried to scan his wrist it would discover he was chipless and wasn’t supposed to be here. He could be arrested for trespassing or ID fraud or something else entirely. San Francisco. Had he ever been arrested in San Francisco? He didn’t think so, but four yawning years of abyss stretched behind him holding endless possibilities. 

“Thorne, sit on me,” said Cress urgently. 

“What?”

“Sit in my lap, hide me from sight, and use my wrist when the android comes by.”

“That will never work,” he hissed. 

“Do you have a better idea?” Cress hissed back. 

“Okay, hold on,” said Thorne, shrugging off his jacket. He wrapped it around Cress, sat in between her legs, and put his arms back in the jacket so that Cress was concealed within. He looked like he had a hunchback now, and he had no way of explaining the extra pair of legs he appeared to have, but to a guide droid as old as the one slowly approaching, it shouldn’t be too noticeable. 

He jolted as Cress slid her arm down his sleeve without warning. Goosebumps. He rolled up the ends of his sleeve so that her small hand could peek out and lined up their wrists. 

The guide droid got closer and closer, scanning each person’s wrist along the way. The people surrounding him were complaining about the hold-up. His hand went instinctively to his collar, where he used to wear his lucky tie pin, but he wasn’t wearing a tie. He hadn’t worn that old thing since high school. 

The guide droid scanned the wrists of the people in the row in front of him. Then it approached his bench. 

He and Cress were on the wall-side of the bench. The guide droid registered the empty seat next to them and instead of asking for his wrist, it turned around and rolled back up the aisle. It spoke to the woman who had complained in the first place and led her back towards them. She took a seat, giving Thorne a strange look. Cress pulled her hand back into the safety of his sleeve. 

“Nice place, isn’t it?” said Thorne gesturing to the prison and giving her a charming smile. The woman grimaced and busied herself with her portscreen. 

~ ~ ~

Cress felt quite warm and snug hidden under Thorne’s jacket. She rested her head against his back and listened to the gentle hum of the ferry as it whisked them to the safety of the mainland. When the ferry stopped and the passengers got up, Thorne shrugged off his jacket again, letting her out. 

“They’re scanning wrists,” said Thorne. Cress looked at the exit ramp where the guide droid was stopping each person as they departed. She looked over the rail to the harbor where the ferry was docked. Behind them was the dock a couple of feet from the edge of the ferry. It was a ten-foot drop to the ground. 

“We probably can’t jump that,” she said. He looked at the dock and shook his head.

“Better to make a run for it,” he said. “You ready?” His eyes glinted deviously. Irresistibly. She took his outstretched hand, heart hammering. 

They waited in line until the people in front of them were getting their wrists scanned. Thorne gave Cress’s hand a warning squeeze and pushed past them, tugging Cress along. Their boots hit the ground in perfect time as they made a mad dash past the mingling tourists. 

“Hey!” a man on the ferry shouted after them, but neither of them slowed down or looked back. Thorne led her across a nearby street. A hover stopped abruptly to keep from hitting them and Cress yelped, but Thorne was pulling her along and out of the street on the other side. 

They dashed around the side of a building peeking around the corner to see if they were being followed, but the street was empty. 

Cress let out a relieved laugh leaning against the building, adrenaline coursing through her veins. Thorne was breathing heavily, a lively grin on his face as he looked at her. His arm rested against the building above her shoulder for support as he caught his breath. A bead of sweat trickled down his jaw. His lips were slightly parted. His eyes sparkled. 

She wanted to kiss him so badly, but she wanted to kiss her Thorne. The one who remembered her. She let her eyes fall away from his.

“We should get a hotel,” she said. “You could use a shower.”

His grin fell. He tugged at his shirt collar and sniffed, wrinkling his nose.


	9. San Francisco

This area of the city was designed for tourism and after only a block of walking, they found themselves in front of a four-star hotel. 

“You have money, don’t you?” Thorne asked outside the automated revolving doors. Cress nodded.

She asked for a single room at the front desk and paid for it with a scan of her wrist. 

“Have a pleasant stay, Miss Darnel,” said the receptionist, handing her two keycards. Cress tucked one into her pocket and gave the other one to Thorne.

“Cress Darnel,” said Thorne as they stepped into the elevator. 

“Yes?” Cress said, pressing the button for their floor. 

“Cute name.”

“Thanks, Carswell Kingsley Thorne,” she said, giving him a sly smirk. 

He started. He had never told anyone his middle name as if his first name wasn’t embarrassing enough. What other secrets did this girl know? 

“I thought you said we could start over,” he said, half-joking. “Could you maybe pretend you don’t know my full name?”

Her smile fell. “Right, sure thing, Thorne. Or would you prefer captain? Then I don’t have to use any of your names.” 

“I do prefer Captain, actually,” he said. She was scowling. “Or Thorne is fine,” he said, realizing too late, he wasn’t helping the situation. She rolled her eyes. 

The elevator doors opened and they walked down the hallway in silence. Cress opened the door with her card. 

“After you, Captain,” she said. He ducked into the room before she would have time to get mad at him for something else. 

The room was nice. White linens on the well-made bed. Dark wooden tables and a small couch. There was a net screen embedded in the wall across from the bed. Cress made a beeline for it. 

“Only one bed,” said Thorne with a smirk. 

Cress ignored him, not taking her eyes off the screen. 

“I’ll just...” Thorne pointed to the washroom and sidled in. 

~ ~ ~

Cress tracked the Rampion first. She was relieved to see it appear on the map with a little blink. Whoever had cut the net cables must’ve put them back together. She guessed they didn’t realize what a mistake that would be. The Rampion was parked in the hills of Hollywood. 

Next, she connected to her portscreen remotely and checked her messages. 

Three from Cinder. 

17 NOV 18:12 - Hey, Cress. Is Thorne okay? He’s not responding to my comms.

17 NOV 23:45 - Cress? 

18 NOV 09:28 - Let me know you’re okay. I’m going to start a search if I don’t hear back from you by 12:00 U.T.

She quickly typed out a response. 

TO LINH CINDER   
18 NOV 13:36 - The Rampion was stolen. Thorne has amnesia, but we’re okay. Taking him to the doctor soon. Don’t worry.

She did a quick net search for an emergency clinic and found one a couple of blocks away. By appointment only? What kind of emergency clinic only took appointments? She tapped the link to the appointment form, but an error code popped up. 

“Server temporarily down. Please call this number to make an appointment.”

Cress stared at the number for a long time. She hadn’t had to call someone she didn’t know in a very long time. Not since she had commed Cinder on the D-COMM chip all those years ago or commed the hotel in Kufrah to find Thorne after being kidnapped. It had taken extreme desperation to go through with those calls and both had left her stomach in squirmy knots. Thorne wasn’t in immediate danger, was he? She could hear him whistling in the shower. He was fine. Okay, his memory was gone, and he had a giant bruise and probably a concussion, but other than that… She groaned.

Maybe she could fix the server issues from here. 

She got into the clinic’s computer system and traced the server to a server room in Northern Canada. She found the address and tapped into the camera surveillance system. 

The server room was full of racks and blinking lights. She rotated the camera around and found the server that hosted the emergency clinic’s site. She zoomed in and saw that one of the cables had come loose. Cress hated physical issues. A physical issue required a physical solution. 

She switched to a different camera and began scanning the facility for people. 

“What are you doing?” Thorne asked, leaning over her shoulder. He smelled like hotel soap.

She jumped, and reflexively hid the tabs she had open, guilty at being caught, and turned to give him a disarming smile, but it stuck in her throat when she saw him standing in nothing but a towel wrapped around his hips.

She laughed nervously. “Just hacking into a remote server room. Well, I was making you a doctor’s appointment, but I got a little sidetracked. Oh, and I found the Rampion.”

“You did all that from a hotel net screen?” He asked in awe. A drop of water fell from his hair and rolled distractingly down his bare shoulder. 

“Wh-where are your clothes?” she asked. 

“Soaking in the sink,” he said. “They smell like a sewer.” He wrinkled his nose at her. “You might want to consider it too.”

He got up and went to the closet, pulling on one of the hotel robes and tossing the other one to her. 

“Okay, I’m gonna hop in the shower then,” she said, pulling the tab with the clinic’s number back up. “You can make the appointment while I’m busy.” She pulled up a calling application and directed Thorne’s attention to these resources. 

~ ~ ~ 

Thorne made the appointment and hopped on the bed. He flipped through the net feeds, but nothing caught his interest. 

He heard a muffled noise coming from the washroom and muted the feeds, his first terrible thought that Cress was crying out in pain, but when he listened closely he heard the sweet lilt of a melody. She was singing an operatic aria of the second era. 

He got up from the bed, coming to the washroom door so he could hear her better. 

The song was in old Italian, but even though he did not understand the words she sang, there was such emotion in her voice, conveyed through the soaring notes, that stirred something in his core. Some deep sadness. 

He sank to the floor, leaning against the door, and closed his eyes. Suddenly he was in some other arid hotel room. The feel of the wooden door frame under his hand. The scent of cheap soap. He couldn’t see. 

He snapped his eyes open, the memory sending a jolt of panic through him. 

The door opened behind him and he fell backward onto the steamy floor. Cress was standing over him, dwarfed in a fluffy robe, a towel twisted around her hair, and a shocked expression on her face as she looked down at him. 

“Sorry,” he said, scrambling to his feet. “I was just– where did you learn to sing like that?”

She softened and smiled bittersweetly. “I’m self-taught.” She made her way to the netscreen again, pulling up a new tab. “Did you make the appointment?”

“Yeah,” he said, running a hand through his hair. “Tomorrow morning at ten o’clock.”

Cress balked at him. “Tomorrow? I should have just found another medclinic.”

“What’s the hurry?” he said collapsing on the bed. “We’ve got this great room, and I feel fine, if not a little sore,” he touched his head tentatively.

“The Rampion, remember?” said Cress urgently. “You are absolutely not fine if you forgot about your precious ship. And, that reminds me, I need to freeze your bank account.” She turned back towards the netscreen, pulling up a new tab and typing away at it furiously. “Maybe I can take over the Rampion’s controls remotely as well,” she muttered to herself.

“That’s right,” said Thorne. “Those thieving revengers have my ship.” And something else precious had been stolen, but he couldn’t remember what. “She’s worth far more than they could ever realize,” he said bitterly. 

“I know, I know,” said Cress. 

Suddenly the netscreen went black. 

“What?” Cress exclaimed. “What just happened?” She gave the screen a few taps. 

The ground began to shake beneath them. 

“Earthquake,” said Thorne.


	10. Earthquake

The earthquake only lasted a few seconds, but the net screen didn’t turn back on. Thorne flipped the light switch up and down in the washroom, but the room stayed dark. 

“Nothing,” he said. Then suddenly, “Aha!” There was a low hum throughout the building and the washroom light turned on. 

Cress felt along the sides of the net screen for a power button. She held it down, but the screen remained blank. 

“Spades,” she muttered. 

“I’ll comm someone from the help desk,” said Thorne, launching himself onto the bed and pressing a button on the little screen on the wall. 

“No, don’t!” said Cress. “If someone turns the netscreen back on they’ll see that I’m in the middle of hacking into your bank account, which is highly illegal.”

Thorne grinned, scanning her up and down appreciatively. “I sure do know how to pick them, don’t I?” He swiped away the comm he’d summoned. 

“In fact,” continued Cress. “We should probably dismantle this net screen to cover our tracks.”

Together they managed to pry the net screen out of its wall bearings, taking pieces of the wall with it and setting the thin screen face down on the bed. 

“Do you have a screwdriver?” Thorne asked, examining the back panels of the device. 

Cress shook her head and then sprang up and ran into the washroom. When she returned she was holding a tiny metal nail file. They took turns carefully using the tip of the file to unscrew the screws of the back panel. It was tedious, hand-cramping work, trying to keep from stripping the screws. They were at it for nearly an hour when Thorne groaned, stretching his hands. 

“Why were you hacking into my bank account?” he asked, handing Cress the nail file. 

She positioned it carefully and got to work on the last screw. She was a bomb defuser working against the clock. “Because your old air force buddies are trying to steal your money,” she said. 

“No, I remember,” said Thorne. “I just meant, couldn’t you have called the bank and told them to freeze the account?”

Cress pushed a little too hard on the file, and it slipped out of the screw. If this was actually a bomb, she imagined she’d be dead. “I thought it would be easier to just freeze it myself,” she said. 

He laughed. “In what universe is it easier to hack into a bank account than to make a little vid call?”

Cress concentrated harder on unscrewing the screw, just one more rotation, and she could twist it out with her fingers. She popped open the panel and used the file to pry out the hard drive.

“We need to destroy this,” she said. 

“You know, destruction of property is illegal too.”

“Yeah, well the consequences are a lot more manageable than a felony. What do you think this is worth? A thousand univs? I’ll take that over prison any day.”

“Where did I find you?” asked Thorne in awe. 

Cress gave him an amused laugh. “You didn’t find me. I found you.”

“Intriguing, tell me more,” he said, lounging on the bed, head propped up with his hand. He was looking up at her with those breathtaking eyes. She felt herself getting shy. 

“You want to know how we met?” she asked. 

“Where did you find me?” he asked. 

“In the Rampion,” she said. “On the run from four different governments.”

“How did you get there?”

“I didn’t,” she said. “I wasn’t on the Rampion. I just tracked your location because,” she laughed. “Queen Levana ordered me to.”

“Wow, so my handsome good looks and charm won you over to the good side?” he asked, giving her a devilish smirk. 

She blushed. “No, I,” she looked down. “I decided before I first saw you that I didn’t want to help her hurt anyone else again.” She frowned. “I’m responsible for some bad things,” she said quietly. 

“Well, you know,” he said, trying to be lighthearted. “I haven’t been the most innocent guy either.” He sounded a little regretful. “I mean, look, I marooned my crew, and now they’re trying to ruin my life.”

“Carswell, I’ve killed people,” she said quietly. 

He swallowed. “Aces.”

“Well, not directly,” she said. “But if I hadn’t served the queen for so long, I know that at least sixteen thousand people would still be alive today, and that’s not something I can ever take back.”

“And I thought I was the bad one,” he said jokingly. “Not that—I didn’t mean—” he struggled for the right thing to say. “Are you hungry? I’m hungry.” He leapt up from the bed. “We should dry our clothes, so we can go get some food,” he said disappearing into the washroom. 

Cress sat on the bed and tried not to cry. She kept forgetting that he didn’t know her anymore and obviously they were not close enough for admitting to assisting mass murder. The tears were coming now, falling into her lap. For some foolish reason she had thought he would react a little more comfortingly. No it wasn’t foolish. He would have reacted more comfortingly if he had all his memories. If he still loved her. 

But now she was just a stranger to him. A sketchy stranger with a shady past who casually committed felonies and destroyed hotel property. This was absolutely not the first impression she had given him when they first met. She missed the days when he considered her a sweet imaginative dreamer. A damsel in distress. Precious and too good for him. That was mean, she knew. She wasn’t too good for him. They were just right for each other, but it seemed a miracle when he realized that the first time, and Cress worried this time would be different. 

Cress heard the sound of a hair dryer turn on from the washroom. She laid down on the bed, clutching a pillow to her chest, and turned over the hard drive in her hand. She fiddled with it until a panel popped off and extracted the tiny disk within. With a snap, she broke it in half.


	11. Famous

Cress and Thorne made their way down to the lobby. Their clothes had damp patches in random places due to Thorne’s lack of thoroughness with the hair dryer, but they didn’t smell like mold and rats anymore. They walked out into the late afternoon streets. 

This was a touristy area of the city and hotels and restaurants were plentiful. Cress pointed out a sushi place. They bought California rolls and sat down in a little booth. 

“After this, we should go buy a portscreen,” said Cress. 

“So you can call the bank?” Thorne’s bandanna was riding up as he chewed, revealing the bruise which was now a sickly yellow color. Cress, reached up and adjusted it. 

“Among other things,” she said, although she had no intention of calling the bank. “I need to track the Rampion and see what Scarlet and Wolf are doing. We could probably use their help getting the ship back.”

Thorne nodded along, although Cress was pretty sure he didn’t remember who Scarlet and Wolf were. 

“And I’m sure Cinder’s worried about us after the last comm I sent her.”

“I’m so sorry to disrupt your meal,” said a woman who had approached their table. A little boy was peeking out from behind her leg, clutching a toy spaceship in his hand. “But my son, Will absolutely adores you.”

“Me?” Thorne asked incredulously.

“Aww,” said Cress. She smiled at the little boy, but he buried his face in his mother’s leg. 

“You’re Carswell Thorne aren’t you?” she said. 

“Yes,” he said slowly. “How did you—?”

Cress kicked him gently under the table. “It’s always nice to meet future heroes,” she said to the little boy. “I like your spaceship.”

“Mr. Thorne, Miss Darnel,” said the woman, “Would you mind signing this?” She pulled out a photo of the Rampion crew. Cress recognized it as a photo taken at the Peace Festival last year. They were all there, arms around each other's shoulders, laughing and smiling. 

“Please,” said Thorne. “Mr. Thorne was my father. Call me Captain.” He took the photo and studied it for a second, taking the pen she offered to him and signing his name over the image of himself. Cress followed suit. 

“We’re famous!” he said gleefully.

“I told you this morning,” she said through a clamped smile. 

“Thank you so much, Captain, Miss Darnel. He’s acting shy right now, but Will really does just love you.” The woman smiled. 

“Uh, Ma’am, could we borrow your port screen?” Thorne asked. 

“Sure,” she said, taken by surprise. She pulled the device out of her purse and handed it to him. He stared at it for a second and then handed it to Cress. Who got straight to work contacting Scarlet. 

“Is everything alright?” The woman asked.

Thorne gave her a brilliant grin. “We ran into some technological trouble, but Cress, here can do anything with a proper net connection.”

The woman smiled. “I hope you don’t mind me saying so, but you make such a cute couple.”

Thorne laughed. “We are quite the pair, aren’t we?”

~ ~ ~ 

“Scarlet is picking us up tomorrow after your doctor’s appointment,” Cress said as they walked back to the hotel. “She’s alerting Cinder and Iko about the situation, and they’ll probably fly down too and help us get the ship back.”

“You didn’t call the bank?” Thorne asked. 

“Well, I didn’t really have time. I didn’t want to keep using that woman’s portscreen with her just standing there,” Cress said defensively. 

“Oh, come one. She was glad to let us borrow it,” he said. 

“Well, honestly, it’s probably already too late,” Cress said angrily. “O’Brian has had your chip for twenty-four hours. I’m sure they’ve drained your account by now.”

“Drained my account?” He let out an anguished cry. “Do you know how long I saved up that money? How hard I worked for it?”

“We’ll get it back,” said Cress marching ahead of him. She rounded the corner and ran straight into a startled young man. “Sorry!” she squeaked, looking up at him frightfully. 

His expression of alarm melted into surprised recognition. 

“Cress?”

She laughed nervously as Thorne approached, from behind, placing a protective hand on her shoulder. “That’s me,” she said. 

“Stars above, I didn’t think I would ever see you again,” the young man said.

“Who are you?” Thorne asked, but the young man ignored him. 

That's when Cress's memories clicked into place. His brown eyes, that familiar nose. She gasped as emotion stirred in her chest. She was staring at a ghost. 

"Julian?" she said breathlessly. 

He smiled. "Hey."


	12. Julian

TEN YEARS AGO

Cress presided over her classroom like a proud mother hen. She read out the list of words for the younger kids to spell.

Blue  
Blew  
Cue  
Queue  
Dew  
Due  
You  
Ewe

They were learning homophones. Aster raised her hand. “Um Cress—Miss Moon—what’s a ewe?”

Cress looked at her portscreen where the words and their definitions were listed. 

“It says here that a ewe is a female sheep.” She pulled up a picture of a ewe standing in a cramped indoor enclosure, surrounded by other sheep and showed it to Aster. 

The door of the dormitory opened and a few of the older boys entered laughing and roughhousing each other as they rummaged for some clean clothes. Cress could tell by their flushed faces and damp hair that they had been playing tag in the exercise room.

“She’s just like us,” said Aster glancing around at the bunks that lined the cold gray walls and the other children around her cramped and contained as the sheep.

“Yes, but instead of giving away our wool, we give away our blood,” said Calista. 

“Yes,” said Cress, eyes alight with a new game of pretend. “We are the prized flock of Her Majesty, and our wool will be spun into the finest thread to weave the prettiest clothes.” She sighed dreamily. 

From across the room, one of the boys snorted. “Cress is the black sheep,” he said. Cress looked up to see that Arol had spoken. He never missed a chance to make fun of her for her games of make believe. 

Another boy, Julian, put his arm on Arol’s shoulder. “Hey, you wouldn’t even know what that phrase meant if it weren’t for Cress.” Julian didn’t usually stand up for her against Arol’s taunts. Cress wondered why he was doing so now. 

“Whatever. She’s a freak.” He and the other boys found their clean clothes and left for the showers, but Julian hung back. 

“Sorry about him,” he said, tilting his head at Arol. Cress just gave him a half-hearted smile. “When your class is over, can we talk? I have a favor to ask you.”

Oh, he wanted something. “Sure,” she said. 

~ ~ ~ 

“You’re really good with netscreens,” said Julian, once he had come back to the dormitories and Cress had dismissed her class. “I know you can download restricted games and reading materials. I was just wondering if you have access to maybe a citizen database or something?”

Cress wrapped her hair around her wrist, twisting and fiddling with it as she considered what he was asking her. “You want me to find someone?”

“My parents,” he said. “I just want to know who they are,” said Julian, tilting his head toward her.

This was something bigger than just downloading study sheets from the lunar school programs, but Cress promised him she’d try. If she could find Julian’s parents, maybe she could find her own too. Maybe her parents wouldn’t care that she was a shell. Maybe they would want her back now, and she could still give Mistress Sybil her blood from the comfort of her own home. 

Two days later, Cress had the answers. Julian’s parents lived in one of the lumber domes. Julian had two younger siblings. They were alive and well. 

Julian’s eyes filled with excitement when she showed her their names in the registry. 

“They probably miss you so much,” said Cress. 

“They think I’m dead,” said Julian. “I’ve been reading about the infanticide laws. Did you know the parents don’t have a choice? Every shell is supposed to be killed and Mistress Sybil saved us secretly.”

“But then that means our parents must want us back now,” said Cress. 

A few of the other children who had been playing a game in a small circle on the other side of the room looked over. 

Julian nodded. “I wish I could let them know I’m still alive.”

“I think I can send them a message,” said Cress. She had their address and their ID numbers and she had already disabled the program that monitored and controlled which files she downloaded so she downloaded a messenger application. 

A crowd was gathering around them now, curious faces looking to see what was going on. Julian was going to talk to his parents? They could all go home? It was all thanks to Cress?

“Cress, I call dibs on the next turn,” said Arol. 

Cress was beaming at the hopeful glances she garnered. “Okay, okay,” she said. “Everyone will get their turn, but Julian has to send a message first.”

“We’re going home!” said Calista. 

Cress handed the port screen to Julian and he stared for a very long time at the keypad. 

“I don’t know what to say,” he said.

“I’ll do it for you,” said Calista, taking the portscreen and quickly typing a message. Before Julian could protest, she hit send. 

Everyone leaned in to see what she had typed. 

_Hello, it’s me Julian. I’m alive and well. Please come get me and take me home._

They waited anxiously all day for a reply, but it never came.

The next morning, Mistress Sybil arrived to take their blood, but after collecting a syringe full from the last child in line, she called for Julian to follow her out. 

When the door closed everyone whispered excitedly. Julian’s parents were probably here to take him home. He would meet them and then come back to say goodbye and collect his things. They all waited for his return, but the minutes wore on and the next time the door opened, a pair of technicians entered, their faces blank, only focusing on the task before them, removing the netscreens from the walls of the dormitory. Arol asked what was going on but they were silent. They rummaged through the children’s things, taking their ports. 

The next few days were terrifying. No one answered the children’s questions. Where was Julian? Was he coming back? Why were the netscreens being taken?

Cress knew in her heart, that it was her fault. And pretty soon, Arol and the other boys, the ones closest to Julian caught on too. They hated her now more than they had ever before. 

The only consolation was that Mistress Sybil had taken a special interest in her now. She brought her out of the underground dormitories and up into the palace to rewrite code and divert information. New adventures like Cress had dreamed of. It was a welcome relief from Arol’s bullying. But it did not rid her of the guilt she knew she would carry with her for the rest of her days. 

~ ~ ~

NOW

Thorne sat on an adjustable barstool that must have been broken, because everytime he raised it to its full height and sat back down, the seat sunk beneath him, leaving his chin at bar-height.

“How are you alive?” Cress asked. Julian had ushered them back into the hotel and they had all sat down at the bar in the lobby. Apparently Julian was staying here too. “I thought you were killed after I…”

Thorne craned his head to try to be part of the conversation, but Cress was sitting next to Julian, facing him and leaving Thorne quite excluded. 

Julian shook his head. “I was one of the first shells to be kept in a suspension tank,” he said. 

Thorne understood each individual word that Julian said, but his sentence meant nothing to him. Julian was lunar? Cress told him about shells this morning but that conversation was fading like a dream. 

“After Queen Selene woke us all up, I decided to move to earth. My family… well, you know. I didn’t want to try to look for them again. I thought I’d get a fresh start here, among Earthens.”

“I’m so happy to see you again,” Cress said, hugging Julian tightly. 

Thorne adjusted his seat again, not allowing himself to sit fully so he wouldn’t sink back down, and fiddled with his thumbs on the bar. A bartender approached him. 

“Can I get you anything?” she asked. 

“Whiskey on the rocks,” said Thorne without thinking. 

She poured the drink, sliding it in front of him and held up her scanner for payment. Cress was engaged in conversation and didn’t seem to notice or care when Thorne took her wrist from where it rested on the bar and held it out for the bartender. 

She scanned it and frowned. “I’m sorry, I can’t accept payment from minors.”

“Minors?” Thorne echoed, shocked. “Cress, how old are you?” He asked, tapping her on the shoulder. 

“Nineteen,” she said and then turned back to Julian. 

“Nineteen,” Thorne echoed. He was nineteen. No, not any more. 

“I can scan your chip,” the bartender said. “If you’re of age.”

“Ah, there’s actually an issue with my chip at the moment,” he said tugging at the cuff of his sleeve to hide the bandage. 

The bartender gave him a look and took the whiskey away from him. “Non alcoholic beverages only, then.”

“I’m twenty-three!” he said indignantly. 

“Not without an ID chip, you’re not,” she said. 

Thorne huffed in frustration. “I’ll have a strawberry daiquiri, then. Virgin,” he added quickly. It was what his mother always let him have as a kid when they went out to restaraunts with a bar.

Cress and Julian were talking about jobs and money. Thorne thought about his money. “Hey, Julian,” said Thorne. “Can I borrow your port screen?”

“Sure,” said Julian, slightly taken off guard. He handed it over and continued talking to Cress. 

Thorne called the bank and told them he needed to remove his ID chip from the list of access. The woman on the other end needed proof of ID. He recited his number but the woman told him it was out of date. He looked at the cut in his wrist next to two old scars. Right, he had a new chip now. Well, used to have. 

“Cress isn’t on the account, is she?” he asked. 

“Crescent Moon Darnel? Yes she is. She can authorize an ID removal if she’s there.” He tried not to laugh. That was her full name? He suddenly didn’t feel so bad about her knowing his. 

“Yes, she’s here. One moment.” He tapped her on the shoulder and held up the port screen. “I’m taking my ID chip off my account. She needs your authorization.”

Cress looked startled, but she took the port screen. “Hello?” she said meekly. “Y-yes.” She gave the woman her ID number. “Thank you,” she said quickly and handed the portscreen back to Thorne. 

“Is everything settled?” Thorne asked the woman. 

“Yes, indeed, Mr. Thorne, your account can only be accessed with Miss Darnel’s ID chip and your password.”

“Perfect, thank you very much,” he said. “Oh, one more thing, what is the balance of the account?”

The woman gave him a number that was a few thousand univs lower than what he knew he had accumulated during his five-year plan, but he was sure that O’Brian and the others wouldn’t have left anything if they had gotten their hands on the account. 

“Thank you, that will be all.”

He slid the portscreen back over to Julian and sipped on his drink, trying to listen to Cress and Julian’s conversation, but now they were talking about lava tunnels on Luna and satellites orbiting earth, and he was completely lost. 

He rubbed his head. The sugary drink was giving him a headache. Or that might have been the head injury under his bandana. 

“So what are you doing in San Francisco?” asked Cress. Thorne looked over at them again. This might be a topic he could actually follow. 

“I’m here to apply for an internship,” Julian said. “I’m going to law school in Stanford—at Stanford—but San Francisco is where I want to end up.”

“That’s incredible.” She said. Something in Thorne's chest warmed pleasantly at the wonder in her voice. 

“What about you?” asked Julian. He was leaning towards her, and maintaining a lot of eye contact. 

“It’s a long story,” said Cress, laughing shyly. 

“I’ve got time,” said Julian, smiling and relaxing closer towards her. 

Thorne clenched his jaw. He thought it shouldn’t bother him. Why should it bother him? He didn’t even remember the relationship he had with Cress. What did he care if some childhood friend was flirting with her? He had half a mind to say something, but she was obviously enjoying herself. He sipped his drink aggressively and gave himself a brain freeze, exacerbating his headache. 

“Carswell, are you alright?” Cress was looking at him worriedly. He had his eyes closed, resting his head against his hand, face scrunched in concentration as he attempted to will away the pain throbbing in his temples.

“I think I need to go lie down,” he said, getting up from the bar. “You two have fun, I’ll see you later.” Without thinking too hard about it, he leaned down and gave Cress a little peck on the cheek, before turning to leave. 

“Oh, okay,” she said. “I’ll see you soon.”

“It was nice, meeting you,” said Julian, standing up and looking like he wanted to shake Thorne’s hand. 

Thorne just gave him a strained smile and nodded before heading off. 

~ ~ ~

Cress watched Thorne go all the way to the elevator. He looked to be in a lot of pain. Maybe they should’ve tried to make another appointment somewhere else that would see him sooner. 

“So, is he your boyfriend?” Julian asked, taking Cress’s wrist between his fingers casually. 

“Yeah,” she said. “Well, it’s a little complicated right now, but yeah.”

“Complicated?” He asked, tilting his head toward her. It was such a familiar movement. It was so strange seeing him again, all grown up. Ten years changed so much and yet he was still the same Julian she had known as a child. 

“He has amnesia,” she said. “And he doesn’t remember anything from the past four years.”

“Tragic,” said Julian, playing with her hand. “So I guess, if he doesn’t know you’re dating…”

“He knows,” said Cress quickly, pulling her hand out of Julian’s reach. “He knows that we’ve been together for almost three years, he just… I’m not really sure what he considers us, right now. But I don’t consider myself single,” she said. She realized rather foolishly that he had been flirting with her all evening. 

“That’s a shame,” he said. “You know, I kind of had a crush on you when we were kids.”

She smiled awkwardly at the uncomfortable compliment. “Carswell probably shouldn’t be left alone in his condition,” she said. “I should probably go.”

Julian nodded, leaning back. “Well, it was really good to see you again, Cress.”

“Yeah. you too, Julian. Good luck with law school.”

He gave her a hug that lasted just a little too long. “If you ever find yourself in San Francisco again, don’t be a stranger.”

She gave him another strained smile and left the bar. She relaxed only slightly once the elevator doors closed. She wrapped her hand around her key card in her pocket. The last time she and Thorne had split up at a hotel, she had locked herself out of their room and gotten kidnapped. She didn’t think Julian had any reason to kidnap her, but she really didn’t want to take any chances. Bad things tended to happen when she and Thorne split up. 

She entered the hotel room only to find it dark and empty. The net screen was still lying, disassembled on the bed. 

“Carswell?” she called, flipping on the lights. No response. He wasn’t here. She took a shaky breath. Where could he have gone? He was coming straight up here and she hadn’t been far behind. Panic blossomed in her lungs. Images of him lying unconscious in elevators and hotel hallways flashed through her mind. What if someone had kidnapped him? Who would do such a thing? She didn’t have a clue. She couldn’t think straight. He was not here, and she didn’t have the faintest idea where to start looking.


	13. Missing

Cress walked down the hallway of the fifth floor of the hotel. She rounded the corner, but the only thing that greeted her were rows of white doors. She made her way back to the elevator and went down a level. Checking each floor of the hotel, she made her way all the way back to the lobby. 

People milled about, some coming, some going. Julian was still sitting at the bar. He was drinking a seltzer. Cress’s eyes landed on the net screen at the receptionist’s desk. She could check the security footage to see what happened to Thorne, but that would require a distraction for the receptionist and too much time. 

Thorne wasn’t down here. Maybe he had gone to the room in the time Cress had been out looking for him. 

Maybe he was dead. 

No, she had to stop panicking. She could find him if she had a clear head. _Think Cress_ , she thought to herself furiously. She tried to put herself in his shoes. He said he was going up to the room. She traced the path from the bar to the elevator and kept an eye out for any clues or anything that could’ve distracted him. 

The gift shop! It was right next to the elevator with bright lights and shiny souvenirs displayed in the windows. Would he have gone in there with a headache? 

She peered inside but saw no trace of him. _Carswell Thorne, where the blasted stars are you?_

She got back in the elevator, she had watched him get in the elevator. Had he forgotten which floor was theirs? There were two other people going up to floor three, and she quickly pressed the button for her floor and averted her eyes, hoping they wouldn’t strike up any conversation. They looked cheerful enough to be the type. 

Just as the doors were closing, Julian slipped in. 

“Cress,” he said surprised. “What are you doing here?”

 _Looking for Thorne_ , she wanted to respond, but the words wouldn’t come. The couple in the elevator were looking at her. She stared at Julian’s arm, unable to meet his eyes. “Um.” Panic was rising in her chest like a heavy fog, threatening to choke her. She swallowed, but the words were stuck, lodged in her throat like a splintered bone. Her prolonged silence was only making it worse. Julian was looking at her questioningly. She wished he wasn’t here. She was already freaking out and now everyone in this elevator was staring at her, waiting for her answer. 

“Are you alright?” Julian asked. _No_. 

“I’m, um,” she wanted to stop saying ‘um’. “Um.” It was all that came out. She could feel tears coming and the thought of these three people watching her cry in this elevator mortified her. She kept her eyes open and unblinking in an effort to dry out any tears that threatened to spill over the edge. “Sorry, I’m just, um.” She couldn’t do it. Why couldn’t she do it? A tear slipped down her cheek. She tried to ignore it. If she ignored it maybe they would too. 

The elevator dinged, and they had stopped on the third floor. She glanced at the couple as they left, their faces full of curious confusion. She was trembling from head to foot. 

“Cress, where’s Carswell?”

“I, um…” 

“It’s okay. Just tell me,” he said, with concern in his voice. She wanted to, she really did, but she just couldn’t. She sobbed. 

“I don’t know,” she managed through another sob. The sobs had broken whatever barrier Cress had been trapped behind. “I don’t know where he is. I’ve been searching for him for fifteen minutes and I don’t know what to do. He has amnesia and a headache, and he probably has a concussion. What if something happened to him?”

Julian patted her shoulder tentatively, bending down to look up at her with a worried expression. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“I don’t know.” Cress looked at the floor. 

The elevator doors opened. “Is this your floor?” asked Julian. She nodded and stepped out of the elevator into the empty hallway. He followed suit. “Let’s just get you some water and some deep breaths, and then we’ll look for him together, okay?”

“Okay,” she said, wiping the tears off her cheeks. 

There was a muffled voice coming from the room next to hers as Cress inserted the key card. The door next door opened. She let Julian in and ducked inside, not wanting any more contact with strangers, but as she was closing the door, a hand grabbed it.

“Wait!” 

Fear shot through her as the hand pulled open the door. It was Thorne. His bandana was hanging loosely around his neck, the bruise nasty as ever. He was looking warily behind him as he entered the room after her. A woman’s voice was shouting something from the hall. 

Cress felt like she could collapse from relief. 

“Carswell?” She said, her voice high from crying.

“That lady is crazy,” he said, glancing behind him as if she would appear any moment and continue to yell at him. “You know, I’m starting to think that being famous is not all fun and games.” The door was closed and the hallway was quiet. He turned to face Cress and Julian. “You invited Julian up?”

“I didn’t know where you were,” she said, fresh tears welling in her eyes. “I came up to check on you and the room was empty. I thought you had been kidnapped or something.”

“Well,” he said with a chuckle and a lopsided grin. “You were right.” Then, seeing her upset, he took her by the shoulders, “Hey, don’t cry. I’m right here.” She hugged him tightly, burying her face in his chest. 

“What happened?” She asked, muffled by his shirt. 

“Well, I came up to the room and the lady next door recognized me and the next thing I knew she had dragged me into her room and gave me a very tempting offer, but I told her I had to decline.“

“I'm glad you're alright," said Cress. She breathed easier in Thorne’s embrace. He was solid and sure, so completely opposite to her own shaky panic. 

“Well, I guess my work here is done,” said Julian. “Unless you still want a glass of water?”

Cress pulled herself away from Thorne’s chest, keeping an arm around his waist. 

“Thank you, Julian,” she said. “I’m okay. I- I’m sorry for…”

“Don’t be,” he said. “I’m glad you’re alright now.” He smiled sympathetically.

Thorne gave her shoulder a squeeze as Julian made for the door, waving a last goodbye. “I’ll see you around Cress,” he said. 

“Bye,” she said. When the door closed, she turned to face Thorne, examining the bruise. It looked very painful. 

“How’s your head?” she asked. 

“It’s been better,” he said. Then he gave her a teasing look. “You were awfully worked up about me.”

“I’m sorry. It’s just been a stressful couple of days,” she said tiredly. She dragged the netscreen off the bed and brushed away flakes of wall plaster from the blanket. 

“No, that’s not what I-” he sat down on the bed brushing away a few pieces she’d missed. "Are you okay?"

She sighed, taking off her jacket and tossing it on the little couch. She pulled off her boots and climbed under the covers of the bed. “I just want tomorrow to get here soon,” she said. 

He smiled at her, pulling the bandana up over his head and tossing his jacket with hers. If he had all his memories, Cress imagined he would lean forward and kiss her forehead before crawling into bed with her and snuggling up, but he simply lay down on his side of the bed and turned off the light. 

“G‘night, Cress,” he said, turning away from her. 

“Good night,” she said, sorrow in her heart. She clutched the blanket that should have been his arms around her, and went to sleep.


	14. Doctor's Appointment

Thorne woke to an empty bed, sweat on his brow and horror in his heart. He had dreamed that he was stabbing someone, plunging a knife into a girl’s stomach over and over again. He wanted to stop, desperate tears blurring his vision, but his hand wasn’t his own. He looked up to see blood dribbling out of Cress’s mouth, her face contorted in horror. The dream had shifted then, and he was driving through the desert, searching for her. An awful sense of dread permeated inside him. He approached a dusty old town and ran through hallway after hallway, calling her name, but she was nowhere to be found. 

Thorne rested a palm on the empty space in the bed where Cress had slept, trying to calm his racing heart. 

He heard the water running in the washroom and felt comforted by the fact that she was in there. He yawned, running a hand through his sleep-mussed hair, wincing as he brushed the bruise on his forehead.

There was a tiny netscreen on the wall next to the bed with a breakfast menu. Thorne selected some food items and placed a room service order. He could feel another headache coming on.

Cress appeared in the doorway a moment later. “Good morning,” she said, stretching her arms over her head. Her shirt lifted a few inches and Thorne caught a glimpse of a large scar on her abdomen. He jolted, the feel of a knife in his hands. 

“Morning,” he said, swallowing down his nerves. “I got us some breakfast.” His hands were empty. No knife. “I hope you like Eggs Florentine.”

“Mmm,” said Cress looking pleased. She knelt down to examine the damaged netscreen propped up against the wall. 

There was a knock at the door and Thorne jumped up to answer it. He brought in the plates of food, setting them down on the bed. 

They ate quickly, and departed for the med clinic. Cress was anxious to get him some medical attention and Thorne was anxious about getting his memories back. When they did return, what horrible deeds would be waiting for him?

~ ~ ~

“How long has he had the concussion?” asked the doctor, examining Thorne’s bruise as he sat on the paper lined bench. 

“Since about sunset two days ago,” Cress said. “Well, it was sunset in Jamaica.” The doctor gave her an odd look. 

“And you can’t remember anything past the year 125? No memories have resurfaced since then?”

“Well…” Thorne hesitated and Cress’s head snapped up to look at him. He remembered something and didn’t tell her? “I can’t be sure, but there’s been a few times, I thought maybe… It wasn’t like déjà vu or anything, more like a flashback, except I didn’t actually see anything. It was more of a feeling.”

The doctor nodded. “That’s a good sign.” He tapped out something on his port screen.

“So he’s going to be okay?” asked Cress. 

The doctor glanced at Thorne and then turned his attention back to her. 

“He has severe post-traumatic amnesia,” said the doctor. “At this point it’s hard to say. He’s still concussed and that will take weeks to recover fully, but his contusion is healing nicely and if he keeps remembering things, even if it’s just a flashback here and there, then he’s on the right track.”

“Is there anything we can do to help the process along?” Thorne asked. 

The doctor nodded. “Go over basic facts. About yourself, about her,” he nodded to Cress. “About where you are and what you’re doing. A few times a day. And lots of rest. It’s helpful to take notes throughout the day, but get a physical notebook. No screens for at least a month.” The doctor turned to Cress. “Other things that could help jog his memory are taking him to familiar places, doing familiar activities. The more frequently you did something when he had his memories, the more likely he’ll start to remember it now.”

“Oh? What kind of _activities_ do we do together, Cress?” Thorne asked with a hint of innuendo in his voice. She blushed, thinking of all the passionate kisses and other activities they shared all over the Rampion.

“Humans also react very strongly to music,” said the doctor obliviously. “But if things don’t progress in the next week, make another appointment.”

“Thank you, Dr. Clarkson,” said Cress. 

“I’m prescribing him painkillers, and they’ll make him drowsy. Keep him away from overstimulating environments. No alcohol. And rest. He needs lots of rest.”

~ ~ ~

Thorne slung his arm around Cress’s shoulders as they left the med clinic. “My name is Captain Carswell Thorne,” he said. “And I am walking down the street with the one and only, gorgeous hacker-genius, Cress Darnel.” Cress’s heart fluttered giddily. “It is a beautiful sunny… _November_ afternoon and we are headed to the pharmacy to pick up my medication.”

“Where are we?” she prompted. 

“San Francisco, California,” he singsonged. “American Republic, Earth, The Solar System, The Milky Way, The Universe,” he finished. 

“Excellent work, Captain,” she said. He beamed. They crossed the street, passing people in hovers. They passed under a tree with dead empty branches. 

“Hey, what kind of flashbacks did you have?” asked Cress when they were a block away from the pharmacy. “You never mentioned…”

Thorne hesitated. “Oh just, it was hardly anything,” he said, and then quieter as if he was talking to himself, “but the doctor did say music…” He nodded. “When you were in the shower, you were singing that song and I… For just a second, I felt like I was somewhere else. Somewhere dark and dry and old. It could be nothing,” he said with a shrug. “I don’t want to get your hopes up.”

“Dark?” said Cress. “You couldn’t see anything?” Was he remembering the time in the desert when he was blind?

“Well, I did have my eyes closed.” he laughed. “Like I said, it was probably nothing, but... there was also a dream I had last night,” he said with more hesitation. “I was… I was…” he took his arm from her shoulders. “I had a knife and I was… You were there and I…” he swallowed. “I hope you don’t mind, but this morning I noticed you have a scar on your stomach.”

Cress took a deep breath. It had been a long time since Thorne had one of his nightmares. How terrible that this was his first real memory to return. “Yes, you stabbed me,” she said. “But you were under lunar control. It wasn’t your fault,” she reassured him. He looked more remorseful than she had ever seen him look before.

“I’m so sorry, Cress,” he said. “I would never… I thought I would never…”

“Carswell,” she said, stopping him and taking his hands in hers. She looked him dead in the eyes. “I’m okay. Queen Levana herself made you do it. It was horrible and terrible, but it wasn’t your fault.”

Thorne nodded, but he still had a sad faraway look on his face as they walked on.

~ ~ ~

When they got back to the hotel, an android stopped them in the lobby. 

“Miss Darnel, there is a comm for you from Mrs. Benoit-Kesley. She says there is an emergency on the farm, and she will not be able to meet you in San Francisco today, but do not worry, because Iko will meet you in Los Angeles. She also says buy a port screen.”

“Ah, thank you,” said Cress. They should’ve bought a port screen while they were out, but Cress thought Scarlet would be arriving soon, and they wouldn’t need it. 

“Why are we going to L.A.?” asked Thorne.

“That’s where O’Brian took the Rampion,” said Cress. 

Thorne’s eyes widened. “My password! We need to get to L.A. as soon as possible.”


	15. Home Sweet Home

They took a hover to Los Angeles. Cress expressed some slight concern with how low her own funds were getting as she scanned her wrist. This six-hour hover ride was seriously draining her account. They wouldn’t be able to buy a new port screen. Thorne assured her that as long as they got there quickly he’d have his money back, they could use his old port screen, and then they wouldn’t have to worry. 

Thorne desperately tried to remember if he had ever mentioned to Caty that his bank password was hidden away in a folder on his old portscreen. She knew he was from Los Angeles, they all did, but would he have told her such a personal secret piece of information? It didn’t seem likely.

“Did you say anything when Caty drugged you?” asked Cress, trying to help him recall. 

“Drugged me?” said Thorne. Caty had never drugged him to his knowledge. 

“Do you remember anything from right after you woke up?” asked Cress. “You got knocked out and then Caty woke you up and took you off to steal your ID chip presumably, and then we were dumped on Alcatraz Island. Does any of that ring a bell?”

Thorne remembered waiting outside the control room of the Rampion, holding Caty’s hand, and then he remembered waking up in a dank prison cell with Cress in his arms. There was nothing in between. 

“Did you say anything to her when she had you alone?”

Thorne shook his head. “Maybe. I don’t know. If they’re in Los Angeles, then probably.” He looked at his wrist, trying to imagine Caty carefully cutting out his chip, but it wasn’t a real memory. “She always had a way of getting me to talk about myself.”

Cress snorted. “I don’t think that’s a very hard task for anyone to accomplish.”

Thorne slept the rest of the hover ride. Cress woke him as the hover rolled into a fancy neighborhood. She caught him up on a few more details he was missing. That his parents had disowned him when he deserted and then welcomed him back to the family after the revolution. The hover stopped in front of a mansion with white stucco walls and tall windows. Low iron gates stood in front of it. The sun was setting, casting the neighborhood in an orange glow.

“Wow,” said Cress, as Thorne got out of the hover. “This is your parents’ house?”

“Yep,” said Thorne, offering her a hand. “Home sweet home,” he said sarcastically.

Cress looked around in wonder as they made their way up the stone walkway through a garden of palm fronds to the oversized dark wood double doors. Thorne took a deep breath. The last time he saw his parents, they were sending him off to the military academy, quite against his will. He could easily believe that they had disowned him after stealing the Rampion and jetting off around the world, but their change of heart was a surprise. He couldn’t imagine his father had been the one to extend that gesture. 

“Okay, we need a plan,” said Thorne. “My mother will find it exceedingly rude if we try to go straight up to my room. You distract her, and I’ll excuse myself to the bathroom and sneak in and get the port screen.” Cress nodded. “If she invites you to dinner, do not accept,” he continued. “She can be very persuasive, so be on your guard. Just tell her how nice her house is and ask her about the wooden duck on the mantel, she loves to tell that story. You’ve never met her, have you?”

Cress shook her head. “Last time I was in L.A. I got sick and couldn’t go with you to see them.” He nodded, wishing he could remember that at all. He had no idea what to expect. 

He took a deep breath and gave the door a determined stare. “Okay, here we go.”

He knocked. 

One of the doors opened and Janette answered. She looked the same as Thorne remembered her from his childhood although her maid’s uniform had been replaced with that of a housekeeper. 

“Carswell?” Janette asked incredulously. 

“Hi, Janette,” he said. 

She grinned at him, opening the door wider. “Look at you, all grown up!” She took him by the shoulders and examined him. He had put the bandana back on his head to cover the bruise. He knew his mother would grimace if she saw it. Janette pulled back, a look of nostalgia in her eyes. “Stars, it seems like just yesterday you were off to Andromeda.” She turned to Cress. “And you must be Crescent,” she said. 

“Just Cress, please.” She smiled sweetly.

“I’ve heard all about your part in the lunar revolution, you know,” said Janette. “And you were all over the news feeds for months, Carswell.”

“Most wanted man in the world,” he said. “In more ways than one, or so I’ve heard.”

“Well, come in, come in,” said Janette stepping back into the house. She led them through the marble-floored foyer to the sitting room. Everything was just as shiny and polished as it always had been. Cress was looking up at the high ceilings and two-story windows in awe. “I’m afraid Mrs. Thorne is out at the salon, but she should be home any minute.”

“Oh yay,” said Thorne, quietly sarcastic. “You know what, Janette. That actually works out just fine. I wanted to show Cress my old room, and then we really should be on our way. Maybe don’t even mention that I was here. I wouldn’t want my mother to think she missed an opportunity to see me.”

“You’re not here for the party?” asked Janette.

“A party?” asked Cress excitedly. “What kind of party?” Thorne shot her a look. 

“Colonel Thorne’s retirement party,” said Janette. “Didn’t you get the invitation?”

Cress shook her head. “I didn’t know about any invitation.” She looked at him.

“Hey, don’t look at me,” said Thorne. “Amnesia, remember?” He wouldn’t be surprised if he had thrown out the invitation as soon as he got it. 

“Amnesia?” Janette said concernedly. 

“He got in an accident a few days ago,” said Cress. 

“Yes,” said Thorne quickly. “And we thought stopping by this old place would help jog a few things around in the old noggin.” He knocked on the side of his head with an easy smile. “But we can’t stay for the party, we’re meeting some friends soon for a thing.” 

“Well, then,” said Janette. “You’d better be quick about it. The party starts in about thirty minutes.”

“Thanks, Janette.” He took Cress’s hand and led her up the curling stairs to the railed landing that looked out over the sitting room. She gasped and stepped up the edge looking down in the room below. 

“You never told me you grew up in a palace,” she said, lightly stroking the brass rail. 

“Come on,” he said, already walking down the hallway. “Let’s get the port screen, so we can get out of here.”

Cress followed him to the door of his bedroom and he felt a slight pause. He had no idea what lay behind the door. The last time he had been in this bedroom was the summer of his sixteenth birthday before his last year at Andromeda Academy and his acceptance to the American Republic Military. Would it be the same as he’d left it? With posters of spaceships on the walls and his old school clothes in the drawers. Or had his mother converted it into some personalized hobby room? There were five bedrooms in this house, but he wouldn’t put it past her to try to sweep his proof of existence under the rug when he became a world-famous criminal. 

He opened the door. 

The room was cleaner than he had ever kept it as a kid, but it was all still here, right where he left it. His bed with the rocket ship sheets, his desk and his old net screen, powered off. Cress laughed as she trailed her hand over the sheets, pulling at the corner to get a better look at the rocket ships. 

“What’s so funny?” he asked a little self-consciously. He hadn’t brought anyone up to his bedroom in a very long time. 

“We have matching pajamas with this pattern on it at home,” she said. “I just thought it was cute.” She glanced around the room. “So where’s the port screen?”

Thorne pulled open the closet doors and scanned the scene. Someone had organized the closet while he was gone. In his mind he could picture the port screen at the bottom of an old cardboard box. There had been miscellaneous toys and gadgets in that box. A jacket was draped over it, but when he opened his eyes, he was only greeted with shelves of neat white bins. The cardboard box was not here. 

“Hmm,” he said. “This may take longer than I thought.”


	16. Mrs. Thorne

Cress wandered around Thorne’s room as he started digging through each bin in his closet. He had posters of different spaceships tacked up here and there, though upon closer inspection, she noticed they were not tacked, but stuck to the walls with wall putty. 

She absentmindedly opened a drawer in his desk. It was filled with pens and a few crumpled up pieces of paper. She picked up a little metal tie pin. It was shaped like a Rampion. She smiled with adoration and set it back in the drawer. She picked up a brochure for a flight school and sat down on the chair, flipping through the brochure, but not really paying attention to what it said. 

Something soft brushed her leg. She looked down at a cat that was curling its tail around her leg and gasped. The only other cat she had known was the barn cat at Benoit Farms who would occasionally approach her on the few times she and Thorne visited Scarlet and Wolf in Rieux. That cat was skittish and didn’t like to be touched, but this cat butted its head against her leg, begging to be pet. 

“Aw,” said Cress, scratching the cat between the ears. “Aren’t you precious?”

Thorne glanced over. “Who me? Oh, it’s Boots.” He went back to digging in the closet. “She’s an android.”

“Really?” asked Cress, giving the cat a stroke down the spine. “She seems so real.”

“Only the best in the house of Thorne,” he said, pulling out a child-size tuxedo from one of the bins. “Aces, I still have this?”

Cress gave the cat a chin scratch, and she started purring. The cat crawled into her lap and started gently kneading her leg. Cress noticed she had no claws. She picked up the cat and walked over to where the window looked out at the darkening sky. A hover pulled up in the driveway, disappearing around the side of the house. 

“Maybe we should stay for the party,” she said. 

“Absolutely not,” he said. 

“Oh come on, Carswell. We’re already here. Your port screen is here, somewhere. We beat O’Brian to it. Iko is on her way and once she gets in town, we’ll have no problem getting the Rampion back. What’s the harm in having a little fun?”

“There’s nothing fun about a party at my parents’ house, believe me,” he said, still rummaging through the bins. Another hover pulled up and a couple wearing evening attire stepped out onto the path that led to the front doors.

“Well, then you’d better hurry up, because I think the party’s already starting,” said Cress peering out the window. 

“We’ll sneak out the back,” said Thorne. “Trust me, it’s easy.”

“Carswell?” A woman’s voice came from the open door, and he froze. She was holding a shopping bag in each hand and had mousy brown hair worn in a shapely bob. 

“Mom,” he said, shoving a handful of yarn back in the bin he was rummaging through. “Hey,” he said slowly. 

“Janette didn’t mention you were coming,” she said lightly. “We never received your R.S.V.P.”

He sighed. “Well, surprise,” he said uncomfortably. Her attention shifted to Cress as she noticed her for the first time. 

“Hello,” she said politely. “You must be Miss Crescent Moon, unless Carswell has brought yet another girl in Miss Crescent’s place?”

Cress set the cat down with a nervous laugh. “That’s me,” she said, trying to match Thorne’s mother’s politeness. “It’s so nice to meet you.”

The woman’s expression melted into a relieved smile. “I’m so glad you both could come after all. Carswell never sends so much as a comm.” She looked at Thorne. “The invitation said the dress code was formal.”

Cress looked down at her well-worn pants and jacket self-consciously. 

“We didn’t bring anything else to wear,” said Thorne. 

“Well, I’m sure you have something in here that still fits,” she said waving vaguely at the closet shelf. “I’ll take Miss Crescent to find something in my closet. The party starts in five minutes, although I think I heard the Kellers arrive as I was coming upstairs. You remember their son, Jules, don’t you sweetheart?”

“Uh huh,” he said. 

“Come along, dear,” Mrs. Thorne said to Cress. She followed her out the door, giving Thorne a shrug as he shook his head at her from his bedroom floor. 

Mrs. Thorne led Cress through her bedroom which was bigger than The Rampion, and into a spacious walk-in closet. 

“You’re very petite,” she said, rifling through the dresses hanging there. “But I think I have something from my younger years that will do nicely.” She pulled out a yellow cocktail dress and held it up for inspection. “What do you think?”

“It’s lovely,” Cress said with some timidity. She wanted to make a good impression on Thorne’s mother, but she knew his relationship with her was strained and that made her nervous. The dress was in fact lovely. It was strapless with ruffles all down the skirt and a satin sash that tied around the waist. 

Mrs. Thorne sent her into the bathroom to change, and she was enchanted by the ceiling to floor mirrors and the bathtub that looked more like a small swimming pool. She imagined she was a famous Hollywood actress and this was her house. She would lounge around in the tub, drinking martinis and calling people darling. She would wear long dramatic robes and peer over the rim of her black sunglasses whenever something caught her attention. 

Mrs. Thorne clasped her hands together in delight when Cress returned wearing the dress. She gave a little twirl and let the ruffles flare out prettily. 

“Oh sweetheart, you look lovely,” Mrs. Thorne said. Cress felt the warmth of pride blossoming in her chest and wondered if this was what it was like to have a mother of her own. 

Mrs. Thorne gave Cress a pair of shoes to go with it, and they went back to Thorne’s room. She knocked and was answered with, “Come in.”

Thorne was still sitting on the floor in front of the closet—he now had three bins out next to him—and he was sifting through a mess of cords and handheld game systems. 

“You’re not dressed,” said his mother. 

“We’re not staying,” he said, not looking up. 

“Carswell,” Cress and Mrs. Thorne said together in the same annoyed tone. He looked between them, quite disturbed. 

“I haven’t seen you since those wolf creatures ruined your award ceremony, and now you show up unannounced and make a mess of my closet,” his mother said. Thorne looked very confused and Cress made a mental note to catch him up on the lunar-mutant-wolf-soldiers later. “The least you could do is attend this party.” Thorne looked at his mother and then at Cress. Cress gave him a pleading look. He sighed. 

“Fine, we’ll be down in a few minutes,” he said resignedly. Mrs. Thorne smiled.

“I’m glad to hear it,” she said. She gave Cress a warm smile on her way out. “I’m really so happy, you two could make it.” 

Cress glowed at the appreciation.


	17. Colonel Thorne

“I know it’s in this bin,” said Thorne. “It has to be.” He had nearly emptied the closet and was pulling out another bin of cords, knotted and tangled together like angry vines. 

Cress leaned against the door, tapping her heel anxiously on the ground. She didn’t want to keep Mrs. Thorne waiting. The seconds ticked by.

“Your mom seems nice,” she said, trying to distract herself. 

“Why do you want to go to this party, Cress?” Thorne asked. “Let’s just get the port screen and go. We could have the Rampion back tonight.”

“The Rampion isn't going anywhere—”

“We actually don’t know that.”

“—And I want to properly meet your parents,” she said. “I was in L.A. about a year ago, but I got sick.”

“They’re really not that great,” he said. Pulling out an old device and examining it, before tossing it aside. 

“Well, they must be better than nothing,” she said.

He sighed and gave her a pained look. “Oh, don’t tell me you’re an orphan.”

“My mother tried to have me killed as an infant and my father died a week after I met him for the first time,” she said. “I was raised in an underground lava tunnel by an evil thaumaturge who imprisoned me on a satellite for seven years,” she said. 

He squinted at her. “You’re lying. Are you lying?” She shook her head. “Aces.”

“I know you want to get the Rampion back, but now that we’re here and Iko is on the way, we have everything we need to get it back any time. This party is only tonight.”

Thorne gasped. “I found it!” He brushed away the dust that had collected on the screen and pressed the power button. “It’s out of charge,” he said. 

“It’s a sign,” said Cress. “We can charge it while we go downstairs and when the party’s over, it’ll be charged and ready and we can leave.”

He let out a final great sigh. “Okay,” he said. He plunged his hand into the mess of cords on the ground. “Just give me a few more minutes to find the charger.”

“I’ll do that,” said Cress, kneeling down on the floor to sift through cords. “You go get dressed.”

He glanced at his outfit, considering it and opened his dresser, pulling out a white button-down and a tie before disappearing into the ensuite. 

He emerged, with his hair freshly combed and the crisp white shirt rolled up to his sleeves. He beckoned her to look and did a turn to show off his outfit. “Do you think this is up to standards?” he asked with a slight bitterness barely hidden in his tone. She thought he looked incredibly attractive in that shirt with his exposed arms and undone button. He was holding the tie in his hand. 

“You’re not wearing the tie?” she asked. “Not that I’m complaining,” she said quickly. “The unbuttoned look is…” she stared at his chest. His mouth quirked up into an amused grin. 

“No, I thought I’d wear it for my lucky tie pin, but my mom must have thrown it out. She always hated that old thing. Plus without a jacket, I’d look like an accountant.”

“A sexy accountant,” muttered Cress. 

“Hmm?”

“Uh, I think I saw your tie pin in this drawer,” she said, pulling out the tiny silver Rampion. 

He gasped, taking it from her. “Well fancy that.” He stuck the pin in his pocket and tossed the tie on his desk. “Let’s go, Mrs. Smith,” he said, offering her his arm. Her heart caught in her throat. 

He blinked. “I don’t know why I said that. We weren’t… we weren’t married were we?” He laughed. “What am I saying? Neither of our names are Smith.”

“No,” said Cress. “But…” she searched his eyes for a spark of memory. He smiled dumbly back. "Nevermind."

“Shall we?” He asked. She still hadn’t taken his arm. 

“We shall,” she said. 

They descended into the party, all golden smiles and polite greetings. Light danced off the chandeliers as they waded through sequined evening gowns and shiny black shoes. They entered the main sitting room, and a young man stopped them. 

“Carswell, there you are,” he said. “Your mom sent me on a mission to find you.”

“Jules Keller,” Thorne said with a strained smile. “She mentioned you were here. How’s life been since the 8th grade?”

“Not bad, not bad.” He was taller than Thorne, more heavy-set, and had a a light beard. “I’m ending my probation soon at the L.A.P.D.”

Cress opened her mouth to introduce herself, but didn’t get a chance. 

“Probation? You’re not trying to steal my title of criminal mastermind are you?” Thorne said. “Though I suppose you’d just be a criminal.”

Jules laughed, but he looked angry. “Probation is what we call the starting out period at the station. I’m an officer of the law.”

“Well, we all have our flaws,” said Thorne, steering Cress away. “It was good to see you again, Jules.” He didn’t wait for a response before leading her to the other side of the room. 

“You’re not being very friendly,” said Cress a bit irritably. 

“Oh really?” asked Thorne sarcastically. She glared at him. “Newsflash, Cress! No one here actually likes me!”

“There’s at least one exception to that rule,” Cress muttered without meeting his eyes. 

His expression softened, but as she looked up at him he stiffened again, his eyes trained on someone behind her. 

“Carswell,” said the stern voice of an older man. 

“Sir,” said Thorne with guarded formality. Cress turned to see a man who was the spitting image of Thorne only a few decades older and sporting a large chevron mustache. He was wearing a decorated military uniform and looked at his son with an unforgiving coldness. Mrs. Thorne was at his side, holding a glass of champagne and smiling. She gave her husband a gentle nudge, but Colonel Thorne did not budge. 

“Kingsley,” she said sweetly. “Isn’t it lovely that Carswell could make it to the party? And look, he’s brought Miss Crescent. How darling do they look together?”

Cress smiled at him, but she wanted nothing more than to shrink away from his stony gaze and hide somewhere. 

“What have you got on your head?” Colonel Thorne asked, fixing his gaze on the bandana Thorne was wearing. 

“Nothing, sir—”

“He was in an accident,” said Cress quickly. “He’s got a giant... bruise…” she trailed off suddenly wishing she hadn’t spoken up at all. Mrs. Thorne grimaced. Colonel Thorne looked at her coldly. “Congratulations on your retirement,” she said. “Sir,” she added quickly.

“Thank you,” he said. 

“Have either of you tried the h'orderves?” asked Mrs. Thorne, seemingly oblivious to the tension in the air. 

Cress shook her head. 

“You simply must try them. They’re imported.” There was a brief silence and Colonel Thorne walked away without a word. Mrs. Thorne opened her mouth to say something, but settled on a forced smile instead. 

“We’ll go try them now, mom,” said Thorne, taking Cress by the hand. 

“Thank you,” Cress said to her as Thorne took her away. She wasn’t sure exactly what she was thanking her for; she was just nervous. 

Thorne led her into the dining room where a couple of middle-aged women were chatting by the table. An assortment of fruits, cheeses, and meats were laid out to be taken buffet style. 

“Carswell, is that you?” said one of the women, turning her and her partner’s attention to Cress and Thorne. 

“Mrs. Gilbert,” said Thorne. “What a pleasant surprise.”

“What a handsome young man you’ve become! Why I don’t believe I’ve seen you since you were fourteen years old. You know, my daughter used to have the biggest crush on you.”

“Well, give Shannon my regards,” said Thorne, grabbing a pair of silver tongs and piling up a little plate with snacks. He looked questioningly at Cress and she pointed out the ones she wanted. 

“Oh I will,” said Mrs. Gilbert. “She’ll be so disappointed she didn’t come along with me like I asked her to.”

Thorne gave the women a little wave as he ushered Cress through another door and into an unpopulated kitchen. They sat down at a little table and nibbled on cheese and crackers. 

“What do you think about the party?” Thorne asked her warily. 

“It’s a little overwhelming,” said Cress. “Your dad’s kind of scary.”

He laughed. “Yeah he’s…”

“I get why you didn’t want to stick around,” said Cress. “Do you think the port screen is charged? We could get out of here.”

“Only one way to—argh,” Thorne said, bringing a hand up to his temple. 

“Headache?” Cress asked worriedly. 

“I was trying to ignore it,” he said gritting his teeth. 

“Carswell, you should have told me,” she said. She rushed over to the cupboards and found a glass for water, filling it up and handing it to him.

“Thanks,” he said, taking a sip. “The lights are just very bright.” 

“Lights down,” Cress called and the lights in the kitchen dimmed. “Just stay here,” she said. “I’ll go grab the portscreen and change back into my clothes and then we’ll get out of here.”

He gave her a heart-stopping grin, as he tugged his bandana down over his eyes, his elbows resting on the table. 

“Hurry back to me, Cress."

"I will," she said, but it came out more as a whipser.

Cress made her way with little difficulty upstairs. No one here knew who she was and she slipped by seamlessly without being pulled into conversation. There was a large man on the landing, but he was looking out over the sitting room. Cress quickly passed by him, glad when she made it to the end of the hallway without him noticing her. Thorne’s bedroom door was open just a crack, light slipping out into the hallway, and she pushed it open, stepping into the room and closing it quietly behind her. 

She heard a click.

Breath caught in her throat, she turned slowly around, her hand still on the doorknob. Caty Nguyen was squatting next to the bin where the port screen was charging. She was wearing a well-fitting suit, and held a gun in one hand and Thorne’s old port screen in the other. 

Caty slowly stood up, her gun still pointed at Cress. 

“Please,” Cress said. She was so frightened that it came out in a high-pitched whine. 

“Just step aside,” said Caty. “Thorne owes us.”

Cress felt glued to the doorknob. “You can’t shoot me,” she said. “Someone will hear. I-I’ll scream.” Her voice was coming out too soft and she wondered if she would even be capable of delivering on that promise. 

Caty shook her head. “I don’t think you will.” She aimed the gun for Cress’s throat. “Step aside.”

Cress swallowe. She could not let Caty leave with that port screen. That port screen had the only way to access the little money they had left after having to pay for hotel rooms and hover rides. If Thorne didn’t make his payments on time he would lose the Rampion, his prized possession and Cress’s home. She took her hand off the door, palm clammy, and lunged at Caty. 

The gun went off.


	18. Kate Fallow

Thorne took another sip of water, wearing his bandana like a blindfold. Despite the dim kitchen lights, his eyes hurt. He suddenly remembered hot sand underfoot and the smell of camels. He pulled off the blindfold, massaging his temples. 

The door opened, letting in the chatter of the party for a second. A young woman entered, her hair in a simple yet elegant bun. She wore a conservative blue dress and looked irritated. She paced near the sink and let out a frustrated noise. She saw Thorne and gasped, clutching the silver chain she wore around her neck.

“Oh stars, I didn’t realize someone was in here!” 

He smiled. “I’d usually be offended that I went unnoticed for so long, but I’m having kind of an off day.” She scoffed at him, but he saw her lips twitch up in amusement. 

“Me too,” she confessed. He took in her brown hair and familiar features as recognition hit him. 

“Kate Fallow,” he said. 

“Carswell Thorne,” she replied. 

“What is this? A middle school reunion?” He smiled, but she just pressed her mouth into a thin line, unimpressed. “So… What’s making this night sour for you?”

“Oh you know…” She waved her hand about in an indication that it was a little bit of everything. “You?”

“I’m stuck at this party where I don’t want to be, full of people I don’t want to see, and I’ve got an awful headache,” he confessed.

“I hope I’m not included with the other people,” she said. “I always thought you liked me.”

He laughed. “Don’t worry, Kate. You’re not completely insufferable.” 

She smiled. “If my memory serves me, you most certainly are,” she said, but her words held an underlying fondness.

“I heard you were studying to be an architect.” Where he heard that he couldn’t be sure.

“Yes, I got my degree six months ago,” she said. 

“Congratulations.” 

“I heard you were distributing vaccines.”

“I can neither confirm, nor deny,” said Thorne mysteriously, although he legitimately had no idea if that was true or not. She quirked an eyebrow at him. “I have amnesia.”

“And I suppose you need my help to remember again?” she said, trying to make a joke out of it, but even in the dim lights, he saw a faint blush spreading across her cheeks.

He laughed. Was she actually into him after all these years? “I don’t know if you can. The doctor said I had to do familiar activities, and I don’t recall much more than flirting with you in English class.”

She rolled her eyes. “I have to admit ‘I have amnesia’ is a pickup line I haven’t heard before.” she said, leaning on the kitchen counter. 

“Aw Kate, you don’t believe me?”

She shook her head, smiling. “You’ve always been full of it, Carswell.”

“If by ‘it’ you mean charm and good looks, then I couldn’t agree more.”

There was a noise from upstairs, like something heavy had fallen over. 

“What was that?” Kate asked looking up at the ceiling.

 _Cress_. Thorne leapt to his feet. 

“I have to go,” he said, pleased to see her looking a bit disappointed.

He dashed out the kitchen door. He took the staircase three steps at a time, head throbbing and eyes nearly closed against the lights of the party. 

As he neared his bedroom door, he heard another thud and a raised voice saying, “Get her off!” 

A second later he burst through the door to find Sanchez pulling Cress off Caty who was struggling against her on the floor, gun in hand. Caty hopped to her feet and blew a strand of hair out of her face, before snatching a port screen off the floor. Sanchez stepped to the other side of the room putting Cress in a choke hold. Her feet barely scraped the ground, and she clung to Sanchez’s massive arm for dear life. 

Caty pointed the gun at Thorne, and he raised his arms instantly. 

“Woah,” he said. “Hey, wait a second. You guys can’t have a secret party in my room without me.”

“Ugh,” said Caty. “Great.” She shifted her grip on the portscreen, and he realized with a sinking feeling that it was broken. A bullet-sized hole had ripped clean through it.

The adrenaline that had propelled Thorne up here pulsed a final throb of pain throughout his head and a sudden wave of lightheadedness lapped against his brain. His vision blinked out, and he lost his balance, collapsing to the floor.

~ ~ ~

Cress would have screamed if her throat wasn’t being crushed by Sanchez’s arm. Caty was still pointing the gun at Thorne who, having collapsed to the floor, had not lost consciousness this time and was groaning as he pushed himself up to his feet. He paused halfway crouching and clenched his face in pain.

“Move over,” said Caty, gesturing for him to get away from the door. He looked up at her warily and then glanced at Cress. Dark spots were clouding her vision. 

“Let her go,” he said. 

Caty nodded at Sanchez, and he tossed her suddenly, gasping onto the bed. She took a deep choking breath in, her lungs burning. Thorne stepped aside, still on his knees and Sanchez exited the room, followed closely behind by Caty. 

As soon as the door closed, Thorne rushed to Cress’s side. He pushed her hair out of her face, examining her closely, one hand on her back. “Cress,” he said urgently. She was still trying to catch her breath. 

“I’m okay,” she said hoarsely. “The port screen…” Tears pricked her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

He closed his eyes, and Cress could see how disappointed he was. He shook his head. “These lights are killing me,” he said. She looked away from him and stared at the ceiling in defeat. “Lights off,” he said to the room.

She gasped sharply. “Stars!” 

“What?” he said worriedly, hands cupping her face. 

“Your ceiling,” she said, wonder struck. 

“Oh, you meant literally.” He sounded relieved. He propped himself on his elbow beside her and looked up at the glowing stars on the ceiling. They were speckled across the entire room, varying in size and shape. Some had five points, some had six, some looked like little sunbursts and some were just tiny dots. “I painted them myself,” he said, looking at her again.

“They’re beautiful.”

“I’m surprised they’re still here,” said Thorne. “It was a very secret undertaking. I had to use invisible glow in the dark paint. Set me back a couple of months in my five-year plan.”

“Five-year plan?” Cress asked, turning to face him. She hadn’t realized how close he was; their faces were mere inches apart. Thorne didn’t seem to notice. 

“I was saving up for flight school,” he said. She remembered the brochure on his desk. How it was not for Andromeda Academy, the school he had graduated from. “But in the end, it didn’t matter.” 

“That’s the money you promised to O’Brian and the others,” said Cress. 

He nodded.

“Carswell, I’m so sorry.” She looked away, fixing her eyes on one of the painted stars on his ceiling. “I thought I could get it back, and I didn’t think she would shoot it.”

He took her hand from where it lay curled against her chest, and gave it a firm squeeze. “Cress, I’m just glad she didn’t shoot you.” Cress looked into his eyes full of tender softness. “She can’t get anything from a destroyed port screen, right?”

“I doubt it,” said Cress, feeling a little less of the heavy guilt that had been pressing down on her.

“Well then,” he said softly, trailing his gaze from her eyes to her nose to her lips. “It’s just a little hiccup.” Cress was having trouble breathing again, but this time her lungs were pleasantly warm and fluttery. Her eyes darted to his lips and her hand slipped down around Thorne’s wrist as he brushed his knuckles along her cheek. She closed her eyes, lips parted as he leaned in toward her.

The bedroom door burst open. Yellow light poured in from the hallway.

“Cress! Captain!” Iko’s chipper voice sliced through the tender moment, leaving Cress’s heart racing for an entirely different reason. Thorne was ripped away from her as Iko tackled him into a hug. 

Thorne made a noise that was muffled by a mouthful of Iko’s blue braids. 

“Oh, I’m so glad you’re alright!” Iko said. “Scarlet told me you were hijacked and stranded, and Cinder mentioned something about amnesia?”

“How did you find us?” asked Cress. She had completely forgotten that Iko was meeting them here in L.A.

“Cinder had the Eastern Commonwealth Intelligence Team track your ID chip,” she said brightly. She was still half-sitting in Thorne’s lap. He was looking at her in amazement. 

“Who are you?” asked Thorne in a slightly flirtatious tone that Cress didn’t much care for. 

Iko glanced at him and then back at Cress. “You really weren’t kidding about the amnesia.”

Cress shook her head. “I’m glad you’re here, Iko. We could really use your help.”


	19. My Wife!

Iko’s golden eyes glowed in the dark, making her look like some nocturnal creature as she sat on Thorne’s desk chair. Thorne was leaning on the edge of the bed to get a better look at her. Cress sat, arms folded around herself, trying to swallow the disappointment of being interrupted just as Thorne was about to kiss her. 

“How are you doing that?” asked Thorne in awe. 

“She’s an android,” said Cress.

“Do you like them?” asked Iko, batting her eyelashes. “They also come in fuschia,” she blinked and her eyes glowed pink, “And silver.” Now she looked like a ghost. “I have thirty-seven other colors too, but these are the ones that light up.”

“Right,” said Cress, slapping her legs as she kneeled on the bed. She wasn’t used to being the leader, but in this situation, she had the most knowledge and was the only one not getting distracted by Iko’s eyes. “So about the plan. Did you bring any weapons?”

Iko nodded. “I have three guns in my cruiser, a portscreen for you,” she pulled a port screen out of her pocket, “and, er,” she patted her pockets, glancing at Thorne sheepishly. “A kiss for the captain?” She leaned over and pecked him on the cheek. 

Thorne grinned. “I like you,” he said and then in a giddy whisper to Cress, “She calls me, Captain!”

“So do I,” muttered Cress, too quietly for him to hear. 

“We’re all set to take back the ship tomorrow,” said Iko.

“Tomorrow?” exclaimed Thorne. “Why not tonight?”

Cress and Iko exchanged a look. “Uh, Captain,” said Cress. “Notice how we’re sitting around in the dark? You’re in no shape to take back the ship tonight, and I suspect we’ll need all three of us to pull it off.”

“Agreed,” said Iko. “Plus, we wouldn’t want to miss this party!”

Thorne groaned. “I curse my fragile eyes,” he said, collapsing backwards into the bed. 

Cress picked up the portscreen and swiped through the setup menu. Once she connected her communication ID number, a series of comms flooded in. 

FROM LINH CINDER  
18 NOV 13:59 - Stolen? Amnesia? Send your coordinates. Help is on the way!

18 NOV 14:07 - Cress?

19 NOV 8:00 - Let me know when Iko gets to you that you’re alright.

FROM SCARLET BENOIT-KESLEY  
19 NOV 2:46 - Something’s come up. I can’t come to San Francisco anymore. So sorry.

19 NOV 10:31 - Cress?

19 NOV 10:35 - Forgot you don’t have a portscreen... Comming the hotel now.

FROM WINTER HAYLE-BLACKBURN  
19 NOV 10:32 - Scarlet-friend told me you’re lost? Vidcomm me when you can :3

She replied to each of them assuring them that Iko was with her now and things were looking up. She would vidcomm Winter tomorrow once they were back in the Rampion. She felt a warm bittersweetness at their messages. She missed her friends. 

“Is there karaoke here?” asked Iko. 

“I wish,” said Cress, although even if there was she was not sure that she would have the courage to get up and sing for a house of strangers. 

“I’m not going back downstairs,” said Thorne. 

“Fine, Cress and I will see you later,” said Iko, pulling Cress to her feet. 

Thorne pouted. “Stealing away my wife,” he said forlornly. 

“You got married?” asked Iko, as if she didn’t think getting married was the proper use of their time after being stranded and stolen from.

“No!” said Cress defensively. Though it was too dark to see, she was sure she was blushing furiously. “He’s just been getting random memories back and we did _pretend_ to be married when we were stranded in the desert. I’ll be back soon, Mr. Smith,” she said to Thorne, trying to make it a joke, but her voice came out nervously squeaky. 

“Stranded in the desert?” said Thorne. “That must be why I keep smelling camels.”

“You’ve been what?” asked Iko. 

“That’s a good sign!” said Cress. “Do you remember anything else?”

Thorne pondered this. “Vultures,” he said. 

“Yes! We were going to be eaten by them,” she said excitedly.

“Wow, we need to catch up,” said Iko, pulling her out the door and into the light of the hallway. 

~ ~ ~

Iko was a much more eager guest than Thorne had been, and Cress found herself enjoying being pulled along as Iko exchanged compliments with various party guests. As they made their way through the house, Mrs. Thorne spotted them and waved them over. 

“Crescent!”

Iko looked at Cress who nodded, and they approached Mrs. Thorne who was standing with her husband and another older couple. 

“Crescent, I’d like to introduce you to the mayor and his husband,” said Mrs. Thorne. “Mr. Mayor, this is Crescent Moon Darnel, one of Earth’s heroes.” Iko waited to be introduced as well, but Mrs. Thorne just smiled at the mayor.

“Oh not this again,” Iko muttered. 

“I’m honored to meet you Crescent,” said the mayor.

“It’s actually just Cress,” Cress said quietly. “And Iko’s here too. She was also a part of our team in the revolution.”

Iko beamed, extending her hand to the mayor’s and giving it a shake. 

“A double honor,” said the mayor. “I do believe we’ve already met.”

“Oh, Iko,” said Mrs. Thorne, realization dawning on her face. “Yes. We had the pleasure of meeting at Carswell’s award ceremony. Kingsley, you remember Miss Iko, don’t you?”

Kingsley muttered a gruff noise of assent.

“Where is Carswell?” Mrs. Thorne asked.

“He’s upstairs resting,” said Cress. “He was recently in an accident and he’s been getting headaches.” 

“Oh good,” said Mrs. Thorne, who seemed to not have heard her after, he’s upstairs. “There’s something I wanted to discuss with him in private. Please excuse me,” she said. “He’s so slippery, I don’t know when I’ll get this opportunity again.” Mrs. Thorne sidestepped away from the group. 

Cress wanted to stop her—she was sure a visit from his mother, cornering him in his room, was the last thing Thorne wanted—but she was trapped by societal convention. 

“So this is _your_ party, right?” Iko said to Colonel Thorne. He regarded her warily, taking in her blue braids, her golden eyes, her flawless skin, and sparkly blue cocktail dress. 

“Retirement,” Cress whispered to her. 

“Retirement? Congratulations,” said Iko, with a smile. He didn’t smile back.

“Well,” said Iko, picking up on the frigidity. “Cress and I are starving. Right Cress?” She nodded even though she wasn’t and Iko wasn’t even capable of eating. “It was nice to see you all again.”

Cress let Iko take her away from the group and then led the way into the kitchen in case someone looked to see where they were going. 

“Just as unpleasant as last time,” said Iko, once they were alone. The kitchen was still bathed in dim light from when Cress had dimmed them earlier. 

“Mrs. Thorne isn’t so bad,” said Cress fiddling with the hem of her dress. 

Iko rolled her eyes. “She doesn’t like me. The first time I met her she was extremely disappointed that I wasn’t you. And she didn’t acknowledge my hero status at all." 

“I’m sorry,” said Cress. “You deserve to be treated with respect and you were just as much a part of the revolution as me or Carswell or Cinder.”

“Thanks,” said Iko. 

Cress glanced up at the ceiling. “I hope Carswell’s okay up there.”

Iko scoffed. “He’s definitely not. I’m sure you know he doesn’t much like his parents.”

“Yes.” Cress sighed. “I just don’t understand how he couldn’t love the people who raised him.”

“Carswell’s parents didn’t raise him.”

Cress and Iko jumped at the voice from across the room. Janette was sitting at the small table, crossing things off a list as she examined a stack of papers. 

“Sorry for eavesdropping,” she said. 

“Oh, that’s…” Cress paused. “Who raised him?”

“An au pair. Her name was Claudia, and she lived here until Carswell was about twelve.”

“Hey, have you got any other fun facts about Carswell Thorne?” asked Iko.

“I’ve got loads,” said Janette smiling. “What do you want to know?”

~ ~ ~

When Iko and Cress departed, Thorne took a few of his painkillers and collapsed with a sigh onto the bed. He recalled the hot dry air and the shifting sand. He could remember the desert. Or maybe he was just imagining it. He had seen the Sahara Desert many times as a child without actually being there. He could make the thought very vivid. 

He closed his eyes and let the muffled sounds of the party below to sing him to sleep.

A sharp rapping at the door and his mother’s brittle voice pulled him from his attempt. 

“Carswell? It’s awfully dark in here, are you sleeping?”

A years old instinct shot through him like lightning. “Lights on!” The lights seared his eyes and he pulled the bandana down over them like a sleeping mask as he groaned. The stars had lost their glow already and he was just charging them up again now. He should’ve kept the lights off. 

He felt the bed shift under his mother’s weight as she sat down on the edge. 

“Crescent told me you weren’t feeling well.”

“It’s just a headache,” he said. He really didn’t want to explain the memory loss and how he got that injury.

“You never comm, Carswell.”

“Neither do you,” he said. He couldn’t see her, but he knew she was frowning. 

“How are you? How are things with Crescent? You’ve been dating for a long time.”

“Yeah, she’s…” he didn’t want to talk to his mom about the girl he’d been dating for three years but had no recollection of. 

“I want to give you something, sweetheart,” said his mother. She took his hand and placed a small box in it. Thorne lifted the bandana slightly and squinted down at the little black box. He opened it. 

“It was my mother’s,” she continued. “And I think it would suit Cress very nicely.”

Thorne stared down at the diamond ring, unblinking despite the light in his eyes. His heart thudded and he felt lightheaded. 

He barely knew her. He nearly cringed at the thought that he had just called her his wife as she was leaving with Iko. It had been a joke. He was absolutely not ready for this. Would the other version of himself be? If he remembered every shared moment, every kiss, every day spent with her, would he want to ask her to be his wife? 

_My wife!_

He had the sudden memory of sitting by a campfire and waiting for her. He had been filled with such worry. Worry about being recognized as a wanted fugitive and a lunar shell. Worry about surviving (Cress’s fever had kept her drifting in and out of consciousness for two days). And then the wave of relief when she walked out of that tent. 

_My wife!_

It had been all just a performance, of course, but even now, with his patchwork of memories he recalled that soar of his heart at the comfort of knowing she was alright. Much the same as the relief he’d felt earlier tonight upon discovering she had not been hurt by Caty and Sanchez.

“Thanks, Mom,” he said, closing the box. 

“I wish the two of you would come to visit more often,” she said. 

He suddenly remembered being on a beach in Australia, reading the news feeds. His parents had been interviewed not long after he’d deserted with the Rampion. 

“We didn’t raise him to be like this,” his mother had said. 

“That’s not our son,” his father had said. 

He’d received a comm that he no longer had access to the IRA account his father had set up for him as a baby. He didn’t need a comm to guess he’d been written out of the will as well. 

Thorne gripped the box tightly in his hand. 

“I don’t want this,” he said. 

“What?”

“I’m not going to marry Cress anytime soon, and if I decide to ask her, it will be on my own time with my own ring,” he said. 

“But Carswell, this ring has been passed down for generations!”

“Give it to Boots,” he said, placing the box back in her hand. “You always loved her more than me anyway.”

“Carswell,” his mother looked upset. He shut his eyes against his headache, and to pretend for a moment she wasn’t looking at him with that familiar disappointment. “I hope you’ll change your mind in the morning. You’re just tired.”

He opened his mouth to protest—he meant what he said—but he really didn’t want to argue with her. “We’re not staying here tonight,” he said instead. 

“Nonsense,” said his mother. “You’re already here, and it’s too late to get a hotel. I’ll have Janette make up the guest room for Crescent.”

Thorne didn’t laugh at the irony. She wanted him to marry Cress, but thought they wouldn’t want to share a room? 

The bed shifted again and he heard the sound of his mother leaving the room. 

“Lights off,” he said.


	20. Love of My Life

“He was always getting into trouble,” said Janette, smoothing out the pants of her housekeeper’s uniform. “I think he just wanted some attention from them. His mother could be so vacant. And his father could be so cold.”

Iko and Cress sat at the kitchen table with her as she spoke. 

“When he was eight, he managed to open up one of the enclosures at the zoo and set a tiger loose,” said Janette. 

“I know all about that one,” said Cress. “He thought it would do his bidding and he’d be the most popular boy at school.”

Janette laughed. “That sounds like Carswell. And that’s what happens when you’re brought up with android pets, I suppose. No respect for wild nature.”

“He always wanted a real cat,” said Cress. 

“I don’t think he ever really grasped what that actually meant,” said Janette. 

There was a clinking noise from the sitting room and Mrs. Thorne’s voice was calling for attention. 

“That’ll be the toast,” said Janette. “You girls better not miss it.”

They stood up, thanking Janette for her stories and made their way out of the kitchen. 

“I’d like to thank you all for celebrating with us, tonight,” said Mrs. Thorne. She was balancing precariously in her thin heeled shoes on an ottoman as she held a tiny fork and a champagne glass. “My husband has had a long illustrious career in the American Republic military. And tonight he retires with many awards and achievements.” 

Iko took two flutes of champagne off of a nearby serving tray and handed one to Cress. 

“To my husband,” said Mrs. Thorne, raising her glass. “Colonel Kingsley Thorne.”

There was a chorus of cheers and clinking of glasses. Cress and Iko tapped theirs together before Cress took a sip and Iko pretended to. 

Iko frowned. “I wish I could taste this.”

“Believe me, Iko,” said Cress, scrunching up her face in disgust. “You’re not missing out.” It felt like drinking fizzy nail polish remover.

The party guests began to disperse. Colonel Thorne helped Mrs. Thorne down from the ottoman. She looked about before spotting Cress across the room. Cress took another sip of champagne without thinking and instantly regretted it. 

“Crescent,” she said, approaching hurriedly. “It’s getting late, and I just wanted to let you know that you and Carswell and more than welcome to stay the night here.”

“Oh, thank you, Mrs. Thorne,” she said. “That would be lovely.”

“Iko, where are you staying tonight?” said Mrs. Thorne. “This house is big enough for one more guest.” 

“That’s alright,” said Iko. “I don’t really sleep exactly and my charging port is on my ship.”

“Oh,” said Mrs. Thorne, looking unsure of how to proceed with the conversation. “Of course. Well. I’m so glad you could come to the party.” She turned to Cress, with added warmth. “Crescent, I want you to know that you are always welcome here. I never had a daughter, but I always wanted one, and well…” she gave Cress an awkward pet on the side of her head. “You’re just lovely. And so good for Carswell. Don’t let him get away.”

“Um, th-thank you, Mrs. Thorne,” said Cress. 

“He can be so foolish sometimes, and the most foolish thing would be to leave you. You mustn’t let him.” She looked around to make sure no one was listening and spoke her next words very quietly. “You know, I don’t like to tell people this, but I feel you should know your options. Sometimes a pregnancy scare is all it takes. That’s how I got Kingsley to propose.” Mrs. Thorne was leaning in very close. 

“Oh,” said Cress quite uncomfortably. “I don’t think…” She glanced at Iko for help. 

“She’ll definitely take that into consideration, Mrs. Thorne,” said Iko with sarcasm on which Mrs. Thorne didn’t seem to pick up. 

Guests started coming up to Mrs. Thorne, thanking her for her hospitality and complimenting the party as they prepared to depart. Iko took the opportunity to steer Cress away towards the front door and out of Mrs. Thorne’s earshot. 

“Let’s hope Thorne never marries you, otherwise that woman will be your mother-in-law,” said Iko sticking out her tongue. 

Cress laughed nervously. “Well maybe not _never_.” She said, bashfully.

“Oh, sure. I didn’t mean…” said Iko. 

Cress swallowed. _He can be so foolish sometimes, and the most foolish thing would be to leave you_. If Thorne had his memories, she wouldn’t have given the words another thought. But Mrs. Thorne had just returned from speaking to him in private, and _what had he said_?

“It’s fine,” she said briskly. “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. More pressing matters are upon us now,” said Cress. “I guess you should come pick us up in the morning, and we can go get the Rampion.”

Iko nodded. “Comm me when you wake up, and I’ll be here.”

“Thanks, Iko,” Cress gave her a hug. She waved as Iko disappeared out the front door and quickly darted upstairs. She really didn’t want to be stuck alone with Mrs. Thorne and be given more unsolicited and terrible advice. 

She crept into Thorne’s room whispering his name. 

“I’m awake,” he said from the bed. The stars had lost their glow in the time she’d been gone, and she stumbled blindly in the darkness. “Lights on low,” he said. 

The room brightened into a dim glow. Thorne was sitting on the bed, blindfold on. 

“Did you enjoy the party?” he peeked out under the blindfold. “Where’s Iko?”

Cress peeled her shoes off and carefully knelt down on the bed beside him. “She’s going back to her ship. She’ll pick us up in the morning. Your mom said we could stay here tonight.”

Thorne let out a sigh of disappointment, leaning his head back against the headboard. 

“It’s just one night,” Cress said softly, as if Thorne was a woodland animal that would be spooked if she wasn’t cautious. “Iko’s picking us up as soon as we wake up.”

“I suppose,” he said. He looked at her, through one eye. “I missed you.”

Cress’s heart fluttered. “Really?”

“What? You didn’t miss me? You’ll break my heart, Cress.” He gave her playful smile. His face was screwed up in an attempt to shield his eyes from the light in a perpetual wink.

“Of course I missed you,” she said softly. _I still do_. They both took a deep breath in unison

“I think I get why you don’t care much for your parents now,” she said. 

“Oh no, what did they do?” asked Thorne. 

“Your mom doesn’t seem to like Iko very much, and she gave me some _really_ bad advice.”

“She wants you to grow your hair out, doesn’t she?” he asked. 

“What? No,” said Cress, a hand coming up to her close-cropped hair. “What’s wrong with my hair?”

“Nothing!” Thorne said quickly. “But my mom can find a problem with anything. What did she tell you to do?

“She just gave me some bad relationship advice. Nothing I plan on doing,” she said. 

“Ah, she came up to give me some bad advice too—well, not _bad_ just… ill-timed.” He looked at her, as if mulling something over. Cress wondered if she should ask him what she had said to him, but then thought that if she asked, he might want to know what Mrs. Thorne had told Cress to do, and she didn’t want to freak him out. 

“I should change,” Cress said. She grabbed her t-shirt off the chair and went into the bathroom. 

She froze when she exited the room, realizing that it might be weird to not be wearing any pants. She was in the habit of only wearing a shirt and underwear to bed, and while that was usually normal for her to wear around Thorne, these days, he was much more of a stranger. But she didn’t really _want_ to put on her pants, and he _was_ wearing his blindfold, so what did it matter really? He probably wouldn’t even notice.

He was sitting at his desk, one drawer open, eyes squinted shut, and fiddling with a small gadget. 

“Ah, Cress,” he said, without looking up. “Come help me with this. My eyes are very sensitive right now, and I can’t see what I’m doing.”

“What is this?” she asked, taking it from him. It looked old and cobbled together like some sort of child’s experiment. 

“It plays music without connecting to the net," he said, putting his blindfold on again. "Supposedly undetectable to teachers. I got it from an old classmate in exchange for…” he rubbed his neck sheepishly. “Uh, a facial cream scam I was running.”

“Exciting,” said Cress. She pressed a few buttons, until a small interface lit up and asked her to choose a playlist. There was only one entitled: Captain Carswell’s Tunes.

“I was thinking maybe it could help jog something. You know how the doctor said music could help me remember stuff?”

She selected the playlist and an unfamiliar song emitted from the device. It was higher quality audio than Cress had been expecting. Whoever made this knew their stuff.

“Wow,” said Thorne. “This really takes me back to eight grade. Do you know this song?”

“I was always more into second era stuff,” said Cress. 

“Hmm, you fancy yourself an old soul?” he said standing up from the chair and dancing a little to the music. 

She watched him with amusement for a bit before he stopped bobbing and picked up the device. 

“Hold on,” he said. “I know there are better songs on here.” He reached for his blindfold, but Cress snatched the device away from him, before he could pull it off his eyes. 

“Wait, no screens, remember? You’ll hurt your head.” She skipped the song and another more danceable song came on. 

“Oh, this is a good one,” said Thorne, readjusting his blindfold. He held out his hands for Cress to take them, and they danced around the room. 

The song was upbeat and jovial, the lyrics about wanting to break out of a mundane life to find excitement and adventure elsewhere. Thorne grinned at her as he twirled her around, but he mostly followed her lead, since he couldn’t see. Cress guided him around the room, hand in hand, careful not to let Thorne run into any furniture or trip over something on the ground, but when they broke apart, Thorne didn’t seem to have any trouble maneuvering blindly. Perhaps things were coming back to him after all.

Or more likely he was just very familiar with the layout of his childhood bedroom.

The song ended, and they were both breathless and flushed, grinning ear to ear and breathing hard. Cress felt like she was in a coming of age netdrama. This would be the part where the two best friends realized they were in love but still wouldn’t be able to confess their feelings for one reason or another. Thorne kicked off his boots as the next song came on, a slower song, a love ballad. 

He reached for her hand, pulled her closer to him, a hand falling to her waist to slow dance. 

“This doesn’t seem like your usual music taste,” she said. 

He laughed. “No. I used to have a crush on this girl and there was a school dance coming up, and I got it into my head that if I could prove that I knew all the words to her favorite song—this song—at the dance, she would fall for me instantly.”

Cress laughed. “That definitely would’ve worked on me.”

“Mmm, I guess I need to learn your favorite song,” he said flirtatiously. 

“My favorite song is in old Italian, and _I’m_ still not even completely sure what all the lyrics are,” she said, blushing. “Besides,” she said quietly, looking away from his face even though he couldn’t see her. “I already fell for you.”

“Right.” His hand strayed down to her hip and the top of her bare thigh. He froze. “Are you not wearing pants?”

Cress’s face burned. “I didn’t think you would notice.”

His mouth quirked in amusement. “I wish I’d noticed sooner.” He hooked his thumb under the hem of her underwear at her hip.

“Carswell,” she said indignantly, placing his hand back on her waist.

“Sorry, sorry. I’ll pretend I didn’t notice at all,” he said, but he was still grinning devilishly. He suddenly gasped and pulled away from her, ripping the blindfold off, his eyes squeezed tight. He seemed momentarily terrified.

“What? What just happened?”

“I remembered something,” he said, grimacing. “Lights off. Sorry,” he said as the room was plunged into darkness. “Just a feeling. I was blind at some point. Wasn’t I?”

“Yes,” said Cress. “You hit your head and damaged your optic nerve, but my—a doctor we knew managed to regrow it.”

“Sorry for turning the lights off,” he said. “I just felt a little suffocated by that thing. I wore it a lot back then, didn’t I?”

“You did.” She reached for him in the dark, and he took her hands in his. 

He took a deep breath, before pulling her towards him again. “Where were we?” he asked, trying to hide the shakiness in his voice. He began to sway with her once more. The only light came from the faintly glowing stars painted on the ceiling. 

“Is that all you remember?” Cress asked. “Being blind?”

“I know it was in the desert,” he said. “And you were there, although I only know that because you told me we were stranded there.”

Cress wondered if she should tell him more about their time in the Sahara or if she should just let the memories come back to him on their own. She always felt so hopeful when he remembered something she hadn’t told him about, so she decided not to say anything more unless he asked. 

Thorne started singing along to the song, words of love and longing right to her. Cress’s heart fluttered like a caged bird. She could barely see his face in the dark, even as her eyes adjusted, but she felt him throw his head back dramatically and lean in close as the verse ended. He gave her another little twirl. She laughed with delight. 

The lyrics fell away to an instrumental break, and they swayed in time. 

“Cress, can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“How come you were so scared to comm the bank?”

“What?”

“I know you were nervous about it. You kept putting it off and putting it off, but I saw you trying to wrestle a _gun_ out of Caty’s hands today, so you’re not lacking in bravery.”

“That’s completely different,” said Cress. 

He laughed. “Yeah, it is. Comming would be easier.”

She shook her head. “Not for me.” She paused. She could feel him looking at her, waiting for an explanation. “This is an awfully long song,” she said. It still hadn’t ended and if anything it almost sounded like the bridge was playing again. 

“Oh, I think this is the three-hour version. I wanted to listen to it over again to help learn it and I could never figure out how to make different playlists.” He shook his head. “So how is it easier to tackle a girl with a gun than to call a person whose job it is to answer comms?”

“You wouldn’t understand. It’s not about doing it, it’s about the anticipation. I didn’t have time to think when Caty pointed that gun at me, I just had to act or die. But when I have to comm someone, I have so much time to think about it. About what could go wrong, or I could forget to say something or the person I’m comming could forget to ask me something important and then there could be a mix-up later with disastrous consequences.” She took a breath, feeling anxious just at the thought.

“Aces. I never think about stuff like that. I’m glad I don’t live in your mind.”

“Well, it’s not all bad,” she said. “I’ve got a great imagination, and I do happen to be the best hacker in the galaxy.” She laughed shyly. 

“You are pretty amazing, Cress. I’ll give you that.”

“Are you mad at me?” she asked. “For not comming?”

“No, not at all—well, not anymore,” he said. “I get it now, and the money’s safe, so no need to worry.” He pulled her into a hug, and she let out a relieved sigh. “It’s my fault we’re in this mess in the first place. I wish I had never stolen the Rampion.”

She pulled back sharply. “Don’t say that. If you hadn’t stolen the Rampion and landed yourself in prison, you would have never met Cinder, and I would have never met you.”

He sighed, brushing his hand through her hair and caressing her cheek with his thumb. “I don’t regret that,” he said. 

The music swelled and Thorne took her by the waist and hand, twirling her around. This time when he pulled her close it was in a half dip, and she found herself clutching the fabric of his shirt with her free hand. 

He pressed his forehead against hers and whispered, “I know I don’t have all the facts, but I think you might be the love of my life.”

“You are definitely the love of mine,” said Cress in barely a whisper.

Thorne pulled his head back, gazing at her with a heart-melting smile and cupped her cheek, bringing her in for a kiss. Though she had kissed him many times before, in some ways this had all the excitement of a first kiss, and for him perhaps it sort of was. It was tender and sweet, and it stirred a hungry desire within her. She wrapped her arms around Thorne’s neck, deepening the kiss. His hands slid down her back to support her as she hung from his lips like the final note of a song.

They broke apart with sharp intakes of breath. Cress buried her face in the crook of his neck, planting kisses up to his ear. He lifted her up off the ground in one motion and carried her to the bed, dropping her down amongst the pillows. 

She reached for him, for his mouth, kissing him again. Clinging to him for dear life. She felt as though she would sink right through the pillows and Thorne was the only thing keeping her afloat. 

He pulled back, cupping her face in his hands and examined her with such a look of wonder. 

“Yes, I see” he murmured reverently. “I see how I could fall in love with you.”

She felt a sob well up inside her. She buried her face in his chest as tears pricked her eyes. 

“I miss you so much,” she said, her voice hitching as she sobbed. Would she be forever mourning the loss of him when he was right here with her?

“Oh, Cress. _Cress_ ,” Thorne said tenderly, pulling back to look at her. He wiped the tears from her cheeks with his thumb. “Don’t cry. What’s the number one cause of death?”

“What?” Cress said hiccuping. 

“Dehydration,” he said seriously, caressing her arm.

“What?”

“I… don’t know why I said that.” 

“Like in the desert?” she asked. 

“Yes!” he said. “You had a fever. Why were we in the desert?”

“My satellite crashed,” she said.

“Right,” he said. “That does ring a bell.” He placed a kiss on her tear stained cheek, at the corner of her eye. 

She turned her face to his face, brushing her nose against his nose and looking into his eyes, barely perceivable in the dark. “You don’t remember loving me, do you?”

He took a breath and a very long pause. “No,” he said softly. “But I think I’m starting to.” He leaned over her, kissing her behind her jaw, just under her ear. His hands slid down her sides, brushing the hem of her shirt. It was heaven, but she couldn’t let things go further than this. Not when he wasn’t himself.

“Carswell,” she said, pulling his hands away with no resistance. “We should get some rest. We have a big day ahead of us.”

He sighed. “Okay.” He pushed himself off the bed, and turned off the music device. 

She found the edge of the blanket, tucked tightly under the pillows and pulled it out. Thorne unbuttoned his shirt, and crawled in beside her. 

They faced each other tonight, curled towards each other with hardly any space between them. She touched her knee to his knee finally feeling like that kind of simple contact was okay again. Thorne reached for her face and twisted a piece of her hair between his fingers.

“Would you spare one more Goodnight kiss?” He asked softly. Cress wet her lips. 

“Just one,” she said. 

He kissed her softly and sweetly, pulling her flush against him, and she didn’t want it to end. When she didn’t pull away, he kissed her a second time. Just a swift brush of the lips.

“Hey, that was two kisses,” she said softly, hand on his chest, forehead against his chin. 

“What if we made it three?” he asked. She sighed longingly and kissed him again, a little more passionately than before. He kissed her back, over and over again, and she lost herself in the rhythmic movements of their mouths. Her hands drowned themselves in his hair, their legs intertwined. His fingertips brushed the soft hairs at the nape of her neck, sending tingles down her spine.

“That’s not fair, Carswell,” she said, when they broke apart. “I could kiss you forever.”

“Why not kiss me forever?”

“I’m tired,” she said leaning her forehead against the crook of his neck. His skin on her skin sent a pleasant warmth through her. 

He chuckled, a rumbling reverberation through his chest, and planted a final kiss on the top of her head, the kindest place to place a kiss. “Fair enough.”

He held her against his chest, mouth resting against her head, and she fell asleep to the deep rise and fall of his breaths.


	21. Parents

Cress woke up with her face buried in Thorne’s armpit. His hand was rubbing circles on her back. She sighed contentedly, turning her head up towards his face. He was looking down at her already and her forehead met his cheek. 

“Mmm Carswell,” she mumbled groggily.

He stretched his arm out behind her and pulled her into a warm embrace, giving her a little kiss on her head.

“Good morning, Cress,” he said softly into her hair. “Ready to get our ship back?”

At that moment, she was not. She wanted nothing more than to lie with him in this bed forever. Feel the rise and fall of his breaths, his warm hand on her back, her nose brushing the soft skin of his neck. Pretend that everything was fine, and they were not in his childhood bedroom. They were on the Rampion, flying to a new destination. He had all his memories and he loved her as much as she loved him.

He didn’t wait for an answer from her as he sat up, slipping out of her reach, sending her tumbling back to reality. She buried her face in the pillows inhaling his scent, trying to transport herself back to her fantasy.

She heard him enter the washroom and the sound of running water. As soon as they had the Rampion back, she could sleep in with Thorne every day if she wanted to. She took a deep breath and pushed herself out of bed.

~ ~ ~

Once they had gotten dressed and gathered their things, Thorne took Cress by the hand and led her quietly down the hall. The sun was barely up, slanting through the windows warmly as they crept through the empty house. Thorne peered over the railing on the landing to make sure no one was in the sitting room—no one was—and they descended the stairs undeterred. He was careful to avoid the last step, remembering from many nights of sneaking out of the house as a teenager that it had a tendency to creak.

A loud meow stopped Thorne in his tracks and Cress nearly ran into him.

“Boots, quiet,” he said, and the cat blinked up at him silently.

“Carswell, is that you?” his mother exited the kitchen, dressed in a long robe and holding a cup of coffee. He let out a resigned sigh.

“Hey, Mom, we were just leaving.”

She tilted her head. “Without saying goodbye?”

“Goodbye.”

“I hoped that you and Crescent would join us for breakfast,” said his mother. “Janette is making Huevos Rancheros.”

He heard Cress’s stomach rumble quietly, and she gave him an apologetic look. “We can’t take back the Rampion on empty stomachs,” she said with an adorable smile she must have been doing on purpose to convince him. He pressed his lips together furrowing his brow.

“Sure mom,” he said after a moment. “We can stay for breakfast.” His mother smiled and disappeared back into the kitchen, Boots at her heel. Thorne turned to Cress. “Eat quickly.”

“Aye aye, Captain,” she said with an amused smile. His heart gave an involuntary thud.

Thorne felt like he was thirteen again, sitting at the breakfast table. His father didn’t even acknowledge him as he sat down. Both his parents were preoccupied with their port screens, while he and Cress sat in uncomfortable silence. The eggs were good. He thanked Janette when she brought out another pitcher of coffee and topped off everyone’s cups.

“How did you sleep?” His mother asked suddenly. She had set her port screen face down on the table. For a moment he wasn’t sure whether she was talking to him, Cress, or his father. “Carswell?”

“Fine, Mom,” he said.

“Good. I trust the guest room was suitable for Crescent?”

Cress’s eyes darted back down to her eggs.

“She slept in my room,” he said simply.

“Right, of course,” said his mother. He wondered why she bothered with this charade.

He ate the last of his eggs, glancing over to Cress whose plate was nearly empty as well. As soon as she finished they would be up and out.

“Carswell,” said his father, clearing his throat gruffly. 

_Oh spades, here we go_ , thought Thorne. 

“I know we haven’t always seen eye to eye,” he began. _Understatement of the year_ , thought Thorne. “But, I want to let you know that I appreciate the changes you’ve made to your… lifestyle.”

“What your father means to say is that we’re both very proud of you for becoming a war hero and we would like to see you more often,” said his mother. Thorne was taken aback. He used to long for this day as a child, when his parents would finally take an interest in him. No amount of trophies or ribbons had done it. No amount of getting into trouble had given him any lasting attention. 

“We’re going to Aspen in February,” his mother continued. “You remember the lodge, don’t you? We’d like you and Crescent to join us, this year.” _Oh_. He understood now. His mother wanted to parade him around for all her friends. 

“I’ve always wanted to go sledding,” said Cress breathlessly. 

“The slopes are just perfect that time of year,” said his mother. “You’ll love it.”

Thorne glanced at Cress, who was looking up from her empty plate with wide-eyed wonder. He could see how much she wanted to go. But in his head, he knew how it would all play out. Skiing and sledding would be fun. Sitting by the fire with Cress would be nice. But his mother would pester him about getting engaged the whole time. Inevitably something would go wrong, they would argue, his father would shake his head at him disapprovingly and they would be stuck with each other in that mountain lodge for an entire week. 

“I don’t know Mom,” he said. “We have a lot on our plate right now.”

“Well, it’s still a few months away,” said his mother. 

Thorne’s father made a sound that sounded like a scoff. He shook his head. “Just come out and say no, Carswell. Don’t be afraid of disappointing your mother. You’ve never had trouble with it before.”

“Kingsley,” his mother hissed. 

“You may be a captain and a war hero now,” Kingsley Thorne said, ignoring his wife, “but clearly you haven’t changed much. I don’t find your behavior to be up to—”

“ _Up to standards_?” interrupted Thorne, standing up. “I am a _captain_. I am a _war hero_. I have an honest job. What more do you want from me?”

“ _Carswell_ ,” his mother hissed. 

“I have spent my whole life trying to live up to your standards, but it was never enough. _I_ was never enough for either of you.”

His father clenched his jaw, looking livid. Thorne had never talked back to him in his life and he was momentarily frozen, unsure what would happen next. He felt Cress’s hand gingerly take his from where he had it pressed against the table. 

His mother blinked. “Well, Carswell,” she started, clipped and breathy.

“We’re leaving,” he said quickly before she could say anything more. He took Cress’s hand and helped her to her feet. 

“Carswell!” his mother called after him, as they exited the breakfast nook.

“Thanks for breakfast, Janette,” Thorne said as they passed through the kitchen. Janette looked up from her port screen, but only had time to give them a bewildered look before they were out the door. 

Thorne marched out of the house and down the street, adrenaline coursing through him. He didn’t realize how fast he was going until Cress tugged on his arm from behind. She was practically running to keep up.

“Where are we going?” she asked, trying to catch her breath.

He paused and glanced around. They had walked nearly to the end of the street.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I couldn’t stand another second in that house.”

“I’m going to comm Iko now,” Cress said, taking the port screen from Thorne’s pocket. He slumped down on the curb head in his hands and after sending the comm she followed suit. They sat for a while in silence. Thorne stared at a palm frond bobbing in the wind across the street, trying to calm his racing thoughts. This confrontation had been a long time coming and now that it was over, he felt a strange sense of relief. Strange because he also felt guilty, like he’d just destroyed something. 

He glanced over at Cress. She was staring at the ground with an expression he couldn’t quite read. A cross between sadness and worry perhaps.

“Hey, Cress, I’m sorry you had to witness that,” he said, leaning towards her.

“I’m sorry I made you stay for breakfast,” she said, tilting her head against his shoulder. “I just kept thinking even after last night that maybe they would be like I always dreamed.”

He laughed. “How are you so optimistic?”

“I just want good things to be true _so_ badly.” She sighed. “You’re a good man, Carswell. I think you’ve changed a lot since your criminal days. You’re kind and brave and selfless—”

“Oh, Cress. I know I’m not _selfless_. But you’re sweet for saying so.”

“No, you are,” she insisted. “and I know it’s hard for you to see it, but you’re heroic and caring and I—I love you.” She gave him a shy smile. “I love everything about you.”

“Thanks, Cress.” He leaned his head against hers. She was the only person he could remember who’d ever believed the best in him, and it was kind of nice, although he still felt the slight pull of guilt, like he was deceiving her. He tried to swallow it down, wishing he could remember doing one good heroic thing.

After a minute of silence, he felt her shudder and when he glanced at her, a tear was sliding down her cheek.

“Hey, what’s the matter?” He said, wrapping an arm around her, worried that maybe he’d let her down by not professing his love in return.

“I’m sorry,” she said, sniffing. “I’m just thinking about my dad. I never got to know him and he was dying, and we had to leave him and it all happened so quickly... He really loved me and I can’t help but wonder what my life would be like if he’d lived. If I got to know him. And it was silly of me to think that your parents might have… I don’t know. I’m just grieving the what ifs and what could’ve beens.”

Thorne’s heart ached for her. He had stopped grieving the absence of the loving parents he’d never had a long time ago, but today was churning up those feelings again and he thought he might understand her pain.

He pressed a kiss to her temple, unsure of any words he might say, and held her tightly. They sat in surprisingly easy silence until Iko’s cruiser pulled up.

“Who’s ready to take back a spaceship?” Iko called through an open window.

They climbed in, Cress in the passenger seat and Thorne in the back.

“Coordinates?” asked Iko.

“One second,” said Cress, already pulling out her portscreen. “Spades, they disabled the tracking gear. Hold on, I can use the net protocol address.” A bit more furious tapping. She let out a frustrated sigh. “I think they replaced the auto-control system.”

“Not Darla,” Thorne whined. “Hey, I remembered something.” Memories of a card game and an escort-droid, a gift he’d won for Iko, were flooding back to him. An icepack on his face. Panic at the realization that Cress had been kidnapped.

Cress spared him a quick glance before returning to her portscreen.

“They changed the NPA,” she said. “They must’ve realized we tracked them here from San Francisco.”

“So, you don’t know where the ship is?” asked Iko. Cress shook her head and Thorne’s stomach sank.

“We should have gone after them last night,” said Thorne, trying not to sound too irritated.

“You were in no condition—”

“I know, I know,” said Thorne. “So what do we do now?”

“They might still have their ID chips,” said Cress. She tapped commands into her portscreen and her face lit up. “Yes! They’re still here!” she said. She passed the portscreen to Iko, where three blinking dots clustered together on a map of L.A.

“Alright!” said Iko. “Next stop, the Rampion!”


	22. Fire and Ice

“Well, it doesn’t seem like there’s anything here,” said Thorne, thumbs hooked into his belt loops as he looked out into the scrubby Hollywood Hills. 

Cress shielded her eyes from the sun with her hand as she looked from her port screen to the landscape in front of them. 

“They should be right here,” she said. On the map, the three dots that represented O’Brian, Sanchez and Caty’s ID chips blinked right where she was standing. 

A few feet away, Iko bent down to examine something in the grass and held up a hand. “Found them!” 

Thorne cursed. 

“Okay,” said Cress, trying not to crumble with hopelessness. “Okay, this is okay. We can still find The Rampion. We just have to… to…”

“Oh!” said Iko suddenly. “I think I found it!”

Thorne and Cress looked at her hopefully. 

“I added a filter to my net access that alerts me to certain keywords and I just received a notification about an underground vehicle auction in New Beijing. I’m checking the listings now… Yes! A 214 Rampion, Class 11.3 being sold by a Captain O’Brian.”

Cress let out a delighted shout and leapt into the air.

“They’re auctioning off my ship?” Thorne said lividly. 

“Come on,” said Iko, already running back to the cruiser. “Next stop: New Beijing!”

~ ~ ~

Iko flew them swiftly across the Pacific Ocean, chatting with Thorne about adventurous times they’d had in the past. He couldn’t remember them of course, but he nodded along as she recounted sneaking through Luna’s maglev tunnels with him during the revolution. 

Soon the steel and glass of the city came into view. Shiny chrome skyscrapers tapered into red-tiled roofs. Thorne had an intense feeling of déjà vu, and he remembered Cress telling him that he had been here before. Iko flew the cruiser to the warehouse district and parked it along the side of the road. 

“Oh! I hid my ship here!” said Thorne. “Like two blocks down. What was I doing in New Beijing?”

“If I recall your file correctly, I believe you were seducing a wealthy young widow,” said Cress.

“Ah,” he said. He wished he could remember that.

Other hovers and cruisers and pod ships were congregating in this area of town. People in fancy suits exited vehicles with dark-tinted windows. Most wore sunglasses even though the sky was covered in thick clouds. 

The three of them looked out of place with their leather jackets and utilitarian pants and bare eyes. Iko pulled out a pair of stylish shades from her pocket and joined the stream of people walking into a warehouse. Cress and Thorne exchanged a look before following her lead. 

At the door stood a large bouncer. He held a portscreen with an ID scanner and was checking people in. A little black cat circled around his legs. 

Cress grabbed Iko by the arm. “Abort, abort,” she said. “Thorne doesn’t have an ID chip.”

“That might actually work in our favor, darling,” he said, patting her head. “Watch this.”

He darted in front of Iko, plucking her shades off her face and slipping them onto his own.

“Hey!” She whined, but she hung back with Cress, curiosity overpowering her annoyance. 

“ID,” said the bouncer as Thorne approached the door. 

“Oh, no, I’m on the _list_ ,” he said. 

“ID?” said the bouncer.

Thorne laughed. “Not at the moment, I’m afraid. You know how it is in this business.” He gave the bouncer a shrug.

The bouncer crossed his arms, taking a step to block the door, looking thoroughly unimpressed. “No ID, no entry.”

“You seem to misunderstand. I’m on the list. Jiahao knows me.”

“There is no list. And I don’t know anyone by the name of Jiahao. Take a hike.”

“There he is, over there!” said Thorne, pointing at someone in the crowd behind him. The bouncer’s eyes followed Thorne’s gesture and Thorne ran for the entrance, meaning to duck through, but the bouncer caught him by the collar and dragged him away from the door. He pulled a handgun from his waistband and waved it threateningly at Thorne. 

“I said take a hike. You’re not getting in.” The bouncer gave him a small shove. 

Thorne glared at the man, and brushed himself off before returning to the girls.

Iko nudged Cress’s shoulder. “Time for a little fire and ice.”

“Fire and ice?” Thorne asked. 

“Just a little trick we learned from a second-era netdrama,” said Iko.

“Watch and learn,” said Cress. She took a deep breath. “I am a criminal mastermind.”

“Hey, that’s—”

“I’m a thief already at work,” she said grinning impishly up at him. He felt that little kick in his chest again. 

Thorne hung back while Cress and Iko split up, approaching the bouncer from separate angles. 

“Hi,” said Iko. Before the bouncer had time to respond, Cress was there too. 

“Iko?” she asked, like recognizing a long-lost friend. 

“Cress?” Iko said, the bouncer forgotten. 

“Iko, is that really you?” Cress approached her slowly as if she were a mirage that would disappear if she got too close. 

“Crescent Moon Darnel,” said Iko slowly. “Oh my stars! Come here, come here!” They hugged. 

“Iko, it’s so good to see you!” Thorne thought she might be crying. Aces, they were really going all out in this performance. 

“This woman saved my life,” Iko said to the bouncer, her voice filled with more emotion than Thorne thought was possible for an android. 

“No,” said Cress, looking into Iko’s eyes. “You saved my life. Tell me, do you still keep in contact with Tressa?”

Iko closed her eyes and shook her head sadly. “Tressa didn’t make it.”

“Tressa’s gone,” said Cress, a mixture of grief and disbelief on her face. She brought a hand to her mouth and pretended to hold back tears. Iko followed suit. She let out a high-pitched sobbing sound. 

“No, no crying,” said Cress. “This is a great day.” Because you’re here, was left unsaid, but it came through in the way Cress placed her hand on Iko’s shoulder. 

“Hope nothing ruins it,” said Iko, giving her a smile. They both looked at the bouncer. 

“ID?” said the bouncer, trying to covertly wipe away a tear.

Cress’s smile faltered, but Iko held out her wrist without missing a beat. The bouncer scanned her and nodded before doing the same for Cress. 

“Go on in,” he said. Iko and Cress glanced at each other and looked back at Thorne.

“Spades,” said Cress. “I just remembered I left my portscreen in the hover.”

“I’ll go with you to get it,” said Iko. “We’ll be able to come back, right?” she asked the bouncer. 

“Of course. I’ll just have to scan you again. It’s a numbers thing. Fire safety or something,” he explained. 

A dawning look of realization played over both their faces. “Excellent,” said Iko. They dodged between people until they got back to Thorne. 

“There is no list,” said Iko. “They’re just scanning chips for counting purposes.”

“Probably also for an insurance record,” said Cress. “It’s a lot easier to track down a potential thief if you have their ID number. We just need to go get you a new one.”

“And how can we do that?” asked Thorne, peering at them through Iko's sunglasses. 

“Aha,” said Iko. “You forget, Captain. My best friend is the Empress of the Eastern Commonwealth.”


	23. Report It Stolen

Iko commed Cinder on her port screen as they sat on the curb away from the auction house. Cress and Thorne flanked her to get a good look. Cinder answered, sitting at a lavish desk in a lavish room that was all reds and golds, woods and painted paper screens. She looked out of place in her messy ponytail and grease-stained t-shirt.

“That’s the empress?” Thorne asked. “I have to say I’m a little underwhelmed.” Cinder glared at him. 

“Excuse me, Mr. Memory Loss,” said Cinder glowering at him. “You’re in no position to be handing out insults right now.”

“Oh, like it’s my fault I have amnesia?” Thorne said. 

All three girls looked at him. 

“Oh right,” he said. “I guess it sort of is. Oh, Aces! I recognize you!” Thorne said, pointing at Cinder. “You were in my cell! I was in prison and you fell through the ceiling!”

“Yes,” she said, eyebrows raised. 

“Cinder, Thorne’s ID chip was stolen and destroyed and we need a new one by sometime tonight,” said Iko. 

“The auction starts at 18:00,” said Cress. 

“By 18:00,” said Iko. 

Cinder sighed. “Okay, I can contact the people down in programming right now.”

“By the way, Cress,” said a voice from the background, “if you ever need it, the offer still stands. You have a job there as soon as you say the word.” 

“Hello Kai,” said Iko. 

Cinder tilted her net screen around so that Kai came into view. He waved from a chair he was reading in.

“Actually, I might just take you up on that,” said Cress. “At least temporarily. There aren’t too many letumosis cases these days, especially with Earth’s new antidote production rate, and we’re in need of income. I’ll comm you once we get the Rampion back.”

“I look forward to it,” he said. 

Cinder rotated the screen back to face herself. “I commed programming and they’ll have the chip ready by 14:00. Iko I’m sending you the address of the med-clinic.”

“Thanks, Cinder.”

“You’re welcome.” She hesitated, taking in each of their faces. “I’m glad you’re all okay. Be careful out there.”

“Careful is my middle name,” said Thorne. “Right after suave and danger. Have I said that before?”

“Yes,” said everyone else in unison. 

“My memories are coming back like a leaky faucet, but they’re coming back.”

“Let me know when you remember the missing finger’s club secret handshake,” said Cinder, making a signal with her cyborg hand. 

Thorne laughed and glanced at his own metal fingers. “Will do, your empressness.”

~ ~ ~

The November air was cold and crisp. Cress sat on a blanket that Iko had been keeping in the back of her cruiser as she nibbled on sticky buns. Her hands were freezing. Iko was scrolling through her port screen. Thorne had popped his collar to protect himself from the wind and he sat with his arm resting on one knee as he stared off into the trees growing in the park. He looked like the brooding hero of a romance novel.

They had a few hours to kill before Thorne’s appointment, so Cress had suggested a picnic for lunch. 

“We should run through your facts, again,” Cress said after swallowing a bite. “Name?” Thorne snapped back his attention toward her.

“My name is Carswell Thorne. I’m nineteen years old. I live in Los An—No wait.”

“Yeah, none of that is correct,” said Cress. “Except your name of course.”

“The year is 129 T.E. I’m twenty-three. I don’t remember what day of the week it is…” he sounded tired. 

“Are you okay?” Cress asked him. 

“I’ve got a bit of a headache again,” he said. “And I miss my ship.”

“Aw.” She pressed her cold hand to his forehead and he closed his eyes, leaning into the touch.

“Cress?” he asked, eyes still closed. “Why do you like me so much? I mean obviously, I’m irresistible at first glance, but... it’s been three years. Why haven’t you gotten tired of me yet?” He opened his eyes. 

Cress was taken aback. “I don’t know. I just don’t think I could get tired of you, not long-term at least. I enjoy being around you. It’s comforting, you know? You’re home.”

“Awwww,” said Iko. She held her port screen absently in her hand, but her eyes were on them. They glanced at her. “Sorry,” she whispered, turning her head away. “Just ignore me.”

“I wish that made sense to me,” he said. Cress’s spirits sank. He didn’t seem to reciprocate the feeling, and she was starting to think he would never remember that he ever had.

Iko’s port screen beeped. “Oh! That’s the med clinic. The chip is ready now.”

Thorne got to his feet. With a smile he offered his hand to Cress, and she took it, her heart beating quickly. He may not remember loving her like he used to, but it was apparent in his small gestures that he still cared for her deeply. The way he reached for her, the way he leaned into her touch, the way his attention snapped toward her at the slightest sign of distress.

She wasn’t so naive to let the fact that he’d kissed her last night stand as proof that he was in love with her again—Carswell Thorne, especially one who was mentally his nineteen-year-old self, would have kissed anyone who let him—but she also couldn’t help feel a twinge of hope as he entwined his fingers with hers, and gazed at her with a familiar fondness. 

Maybe he would soon remember that she was his home too.

~ ~ ~

The med-clinic was located in a district on the edge of the city. The buildings here were newer and sleeker than those of the city center or warehouse district. Pinnacles of modern architecture. Iko explained this was the New Beijing University Campus. 

A woman behind a desk, checked Thorne into his appointment with a port screen, and told him to take a seat until his name was called. Iko and Cress watched a silent net screen, reading the subtitles, as a table of women talked about celebrity gossip.

“Carswell Thorne,” called a robotic voice. A med droid led the three of them into an examination room. “A nurse will be with you shortly.”

A few moments later, a young man with blond hair that fell past his ears walked in, eyes on his port screen. 

“So we’ve got an ID chip insertion today?” he asked. He raised his eyes as recognition hit him. 

“Jacin! What are you doing here?” said Iko, leaping to her feet. 

“Work study,” he said, alarm flashing across his face as he braced himself for a hug. “It’s part of the med program at the University. So which one of you lost their chip?”

“That would be me,” said Thorne, raising his hand with a flourish. 

“Figures,” muttered Jacin. 

“Excuse me?” said Thorne, narrowing his eyes.

“Of everyone in this room, you are by far the most likely to lose your ID chip,” said Jacin. 

Thorne looked at him suspiciously. “Do I know you?”

Jacin looked puzzled. “Of course.”

“He’s suffering from amnesia,” supplied Cress. 

“Of course he is,” said Jacin, with a weary sigh. 

“The Rampion was stolen by the same people who took his chip and he needs a new one so we can get into an underground auction house and get it back.”

Jacin looked puzzled again. “You’re going to bid on the Rampion?”

Thorne laughed. “No way. We’re going to steal it back.”

“Why don’t you just report it stolen to the police?”

Cress, Iko, and Thorne exchanged long glances. 

Cress laughed shyly. “We, um… we never considered that.”

Jacin rolled his eyes. “I honestly don’t understand how you all manage to make it through life in one piece.”

“Well, to be fair, I actually didn’t,” Thorne said holding up the hand with his metal fingers. He gave them a wiggle. “By the way, I still don’t know how I lost these,” he mused. Cress looked down at the floor. 

Jacin sighed. “Ready for your new chip?” He opened a drawer in the wall, and took out a handheld device that looked like a cross between a hot glue gun and a stapler. 

“Woah, wait, you’re going to knock me out first, right?”

“That’s not standard procedure.”

Thorne laughed nervously. “On second thought. We don’t need to do this right now. We can comm the police, and we won’t have to get into that auction house at all.”

“Hey, Cinder made it a priority to have this programmed for you today,” said Iko. “You’re not going to waste the royal programmers’ time.”

“Not to mention mine,” said Jacin.

“And,” said Cress. “You need a new chip. You’ll have to do this eventually. You might as well get it over with.” She took his hand. “I’m right here with you. it’ll be—“

Thorne let out a high pitched scream. While Cress had been distracting him, Jacin had grabbed his wrist and inserted the chip in one swift motion. 

“Oh aces and spades and stars!” said Thorne. “That really…. wasn’t actually that bad.” He released his iron grip on Cress’s hand and she shook out her fingers with a grimace before offering him a smile.

Jacin swiftly placed a small bandage on the entrance wound. Thorne examined his wrist curiously. 

“Cress, while you’re here,” said Jacin. “Could I persuade you to donate some blood?”

“Sure,” said Cress, a bit uneasily. Getting her blood taken always reminded her of Mistress Sybil, but Jacin was a friend, and her blood would be used for a good cause here. 

“You don’t want my blood?” asked Thorne. “I’m offended.”

“You’re not a lunar shell, moron,” said Jacin. 

“Shell blood is how they make the antidote for letumosis,” explained Iko cheerily. 

Cress and Thorne switched places. The paper on the examination table crinkled loudly as she sat down. Jacin took her pulse, blood pressure and temperature. Then he inserted a small syringe into her arm and took a sample for testing. He input the sample into the special attachment doctors had on their port screens.

“Okay, everything looks good,” he said. He opened a cabinet and extracted a blood bag and an IV. 

“Wow that’s a big bag,” said Thorne. “Are you sure she has enough blood for that? She is quite small.”

Jacin glared at him. “I know what I’m doing.”

Cress leaned against the wall as Jacin inserted the needle and watched transfixed as her blood slid up the tube and began to fill the bag. 

“Oh, aces,” said Thorne looking away. “I think I’m gonna be sick.”

“What? Can’t stand the sight of a little blood?” Jacin asked smugly. 

“No, no definitely not,” said Thorne. 

When the bag contained a full pint, Jacin detached the IV and his eyes widened. 

“What?” asked Cress.

“I forgot to weigh you,” he said. 

“Did you take too much?” asked Iko. 

“I thought you said you knew what you were doing,” said Thorne. 

“I do,” said Jacin defensively. “But I’m still technically in training. You’ll be fine,” he said to Cress. “Just drink lots of water and have a snack. You’re over a hundred and ten pounds, right?”

“I’m not sure,” she said. “I don’t think I’ve ever been weighed.”

He gestured to a scale that stood on the floor. She stepped onto it. Everyone held their breaths as the numbers blinked into view: 109.8.

“Close enough,” said Jacin.

“The loss of blood probably subtracted a pound,” said Iko. 

“Aces, you’re tiny,” said Thorne. “I could bench press you.”

“Yeah maybe,” said Cress, blushing.

Jacin scoffed. He took out a water bottle and a protein bar from the cabinet and handed them to her. “Eat this. And avoid any strenuous activities. That goes for you too,” he said to Thorne. “You definitely shouldn’t be bench pressing anyone with such a severe concussion.”

“I guess this is all the more reason to comm the police instead of attempting to take the ship back ourselves,” said Iko. 

“Yes, please don’t do that,” said Jacin. “You should both be resting today. Iko, I trust you’ll keep an eye on them?”

“Of course,” she said with a smile.

~ ~ ~

Thorne took Jacin’s advice and commed the police on Cress’s new port screen. The officer that answered walked him through filling out a report. 

“Okay, Mr. Thorne—”

“Captain Thorne,” he corrected. 

“Captain Thorne,” the officer amended. “Your report will be processed and investigated shortly. We’ll get back to you in three to five business days.”

“Three to five—what? No, I need my ship back today,” said Thorne, but the officer had already disconnected the net link. “Hello? Spades.” Iko and Cress gave him sympathetic looks. Thorne shook his head. “We’re not waiting for the police.”

“But Jacin said you need rest,” said Iko. 

“We can rest on the Rampion,” said Cress. “Besides, I feel fine.”

“Exactly,” said Thorne. “I have my chip. Cress is fine. And we’ve got a badass android who could probably take back the Rampion single-handedly.” He grinned. “We’re going to that auction and getting my baby back tonight.”


	24. All Out

There were a lot less people around the entrance of the auction house when Cress, Iko, and Thorne returned that evening. The bouncer scanned their wrists and ushered them inside. 

The cavernous warehouse was teeming with people. Some sat in the seats that had been arranged in rows before a stage in the back, but most of them walked through the bazaar of booths and net screens showcasing different ship models, that took up the front of the warehouse. Against the far wall to the right was what looked to be a small casino, complete with a holographic roulette wheel and a couple of card tables. Cress felt Thorne tense up in anticipation when his eyes alighted on the sight. 

“We should split up,” said Iko, surveying the place. “Find out where they’re keeping all the ships and meet back here before the auction begins. Then we’ll storm in there together and take it back, while everyone’s occupied with the bidding.”

“Good thinking,” said Thorne. He gave Cress’s hand a squeeze of farewell before slipping out of her grasp. 

Cress didn’t like the idea of splitting up, but when she turned to Iko to protest, she was already gone. She turned back to Thorne but he had vanished too. She sighed and put her hands in her pockets, letting her fingers brush against the gun concealed in her waistband. It was less of a comfort than she’d hoped. She really didn’t want to have to use it. 

She pressed through the crowd around her, making her way to a wall and following it until she came to a door. She tried it but it was locked. She continued along the perimeter of the room until she came upon a second door, but it too was locked. She took a step to the side and stood on her tiptoes, trying to see if there were any other doors along this wall before she hit the stage, when the door next to her opened and a scary looking man with a dark jacket, and sunglasses exited. He looked like he belonged on the security team. He didn’t notice her, half-concealed behind the door he’d opened, and she grabbed the handle, keeping it open. His back was toward her as he walked away and she scurried through the door into the room beyond without detection.

It was another warehouse, high ceilings and concrete floors. And filled with vehicles of all kinds. There were hover bikes and hover cars, cruisers big and small. A few were the size of the Rampion, but the hangar was definitely lacking Thorne’s familiar cargo ship. She thought back to that first door she had passed and wondered how long she’d have to wait outside it before someone left it open. 

She slipped back out into the auction house, but as she was heading back for the first door, someone shouted at her. 

“Hey!” she spun around and was face to face with one of the large security agents, eyes hidden behind black shades. 

~ ~ ~

Iko made her way through the crowd towards the stage heading directly for a security guard who stood with his arms clasped behind him. He was younger and smaller than the others she’d seen around the entrances, which meant he’d likely be more susceptible to her charms. 

“I’ve always wanted to be a security guard,” she said adding a hint of flirtation to her inflections. She had sidled up beside him and he glanced over at her, cautiously curious. “I can’t imagine how much _skill_ and _expertise_ it must require.”

“Oh, it’s not so hard,” he said, trying to sound humble, but Iko’s sensors detected a slight puff to his chest that hadn’t been there before the compliment. 

“But protecting all these vehicles from possible thieves… that must be so… dangerous.” She looked up at him through her lashes, a difficult feat since she was his height. 

“Yeah, it can be,” he said, standing a little taller. 

“Do you have access to the ships?”

He smiled, and held up his wrist. “High security clearance.”

“Ooh,” Iko said as if he was a renowned fashion designer and he had just given her free reign to a wardrobe of his finest pieces. “You know, it’s a fantasy of mine to be given a private tour… you wouldn’t be able to make that come true would you?” She gave him a coy smile and he blushed. 

“I’m not really supposed to,” he said. 

“Well, that’s half the fun,” she said, batting her eyelashes at him. 

“Okay. Just a little tour won’t hurt,” he said. 

Iko grinned. Mission success.

~ ~ ~

“That hangar is off limits to guests,” said the security agent. He loomed over Cress angrily and she shrank back against the wall. “How did you get in there?”

“I’m sorry!” Cress squeaked. “I—I was just looking for the bathroom.”

The security agent’s expression softened, realizing he was speaking to a tiny harmless young lady who was just a little lost. He pointed her towards a door across the auction house floor. Where an obvious sign labelled it as a bathroom, and keeping up the pretense, she thanked him and hurried toward it. She did not dare look back to see if he was still watching her, but she thought she could feel eyes on her until she closed the bathroom door behind her. 

There was a woman at one of the sinks, and not knowing what else to do, she stood beside her and began to wash her hands. She stared at herself in the mirror and took a deep breath. Everything was fine. She hadn’t gotten in trouble. She hadn’t needed to use her gun. She checked her port screen. The auction was scheduled to start in twenty minutes. She had twenty minutes to keep searching for the Rampion and if she didn’t find it, hopefully Thorne or Iko would have.

“Fallow-Mei, Kim-Jiě’s looking for you. Something about the inventory lists?” A young girl had peeked her head in the door and was speaking to the woman at the sink next to Cress.

“I’ll be right there,” she said, drying her hands in the hand dryer. 

Cress fluffed at her hair a bit to kill more time, just in case the security guard still had his eye on the washroom door. She hadn’t washed it since San Francisco and it was starting to get a little greasy. She frowned, but there was nothing she could do about it now. 

When she left the bathroom, she made her way around the edge of the room again, towards the door she hadn’t gone through. While passing the casino, she saw Thorne out of the corner of her eye. He was sitting at one of the card tables, playing a round of what she assumed was royals. She approached him, setting a hand on his shoulder to let him know she was there. 

“Ah, my good luck charm,” he said, glancing up at her. “You’re just in time, I really need it.”

“What are you doing?” she asked quietly, leaning down to speak into his ear.

“Give me a kiss for luck,” he said tapping his cheek. She did.

“You’re supposed to be looking for the Rampion,” she said. 

“I know, but you and Iko seem very capable and I thought I’d fix another little problem for us while we’re here. Although,” he said looking down at his cards, a poor hand indeed, “things are not going to plan. Did you find it?”

“Not yet.”

“Hmm, you might need a good-luck kiss too.” He turned his head toward her, but she didn’t offer him her cheek, just looked at him worriedly. His jovial expression cracked into concern.

The dealer called for everyone to show their hands and Thorne sighed heavily as another player revealed the royals in her hand. 

“I’m all out,” he said, like he couldn’t believe it. He stood up hollowly. 

“How much did you lose?” Cress asked. 

He didn’t answer, just shook his head. 

“Carswell, tell me you didn’t just gamble away all your money,” Cress said, as he walked slowly away from the table. 

“Something was off about that game,” he said, shaking his head harder. He looked back at the table, analyzing, scrutinizing, searching for something Cress couldn’t be sure of. 

“Sometimes these things happen,” she said. “You can’t win them all.”

“No. Something wasn’t right. Believe me, I’ve rigged enough games to know. Lend me some money, will you? I’m going to win back what I lost.”

“Carswell, we can’t afford to lose anything else. I barely have enough to make the payment on the Rampion this month.” 

He mirrored her look of concern and let out a hopeless sigh. “I’m sorry, Cress.”

“Why were you gambling anyway?”

“I just thought that since you’ve spent nearly all your money on hotels and hover rides because of the mess _I_ got us into, the least I could do was get some of that money back. I didn’t want you to have to take the programming job. I mean, I think you should if that’s what you want. You’d be amazing at it, but I didn’t want you to _have_ to. And now...” he took a sharp breath. “I’ve made things worse.” He looked at her warily as if afraid she might hate him, but she could never hate him. 

Her heart panged at the tragedy of good intentions gone terribly wrong. 

“We’ll be okay,” she said softly, taking his hands. He peered at her curiously. “Maybe you can find a job at the palace as well. Then at least we won’t have to live apart.”

A flicker of blue streaked across her vision and they both looked up as Iko skipped towards them. 

“I found it!” She said delightedly. Then, noticing their somber expressions, she frowned. “This is _good_ news,” she said. “I know where the Rampion is!”


	25. Wickham

The hangar wasn’t empty when they entered. Footsteps and quiet voices echoed off the metal walls and concrete floors from the far side of the space near a certain 214 Rampion, class 11.3. Thorne was crouched between two pod ships, one hand on the gun inside his jacket and the other in Cress’s hand. Ahead of them, Iko’s boots were visible beneath a hover as she scouted ahead. 

The Rampion was the largest ship in this hangar, and Cress could see the tinted windows of the cockpit from here. It was so close. They were so close. 

Out of the corner of her eye Cress spotted movement to her right. It was the little black cat from the auction house entrance. The cat was briskly walking along the side of the hanger towards the back.

There was a clang of metal that made Cress jump, and Thorne reflexively shushed her though she hadn’t made a sound. A second later, they both realized the noise had come from the people who were talking near the Rampion. Iko froze as the sound of footsteps drew the speaking people towards Cress and Thorne’s position. 

“Are you absolutely sure you’d rather auction off parts?” said a woman. “I’ve got a sizable list of buyers who would take it in one piece. It would certainly speed the process up.”

Thorne’s eyes widened and Cress could imagine his thoughts. Auction off parts? They're going to tear apart my ship?

“No,” said the other woman, and Cress immediately recognized O’Brian. “We’ll get more for smaller pieces, and I don’t want this being traced back to me.”

“Oh, I assure you, we have a very thorough stripping protocol as well as secure client confidentiality. This won’t ever…” she trailed off. Thorne had been readjusting his crouching position when his boot squeaked on the concrete floor. Cress shushed him. “Um, excuse me just for a moment,” the woman said to O’Brian, before coming towards where Cress and Thorne were crouched behind a pod ship.

“Hello?” she called to them. Cress realized this was the woman who had been washing her hands next to her in the bathroom. “This hangar is off-limits.” She gasped when she saw Thorne and Cress. 

Thorne cursed.

~ ~ ~

Iko watched the two women walk away from the Rampion and took the opportunity to slip behind them. She glanced behind her, but the women didn’t notice her. She touched a hand to the Rampion, feeling like she’d won a game of tag. Their mission was drawing close to success. 

The entrance ramp was closed, and she knew that opening it would likely draw unwanted attention, so she would have to wait for the two women to leave the hangar. If Thorne and Cress could just sit tight until then, they’d be in the clear. 

“Who are you?” 

Iko spun around, falling back on her android programming to keep her expression neutral and unconcerned. A large man turned to face her. He had one hand in the pocket of his American Republic military jacket, and Iko didn’t need x-ray vision to tell he had a gun in there. 

“I’m part of the security team here,” she said with a smile. “Just making sure there are no thieves about. Why are you here?”

“I’m also guarding against thieves,” he said, narrowing his eyes at her. 

“Looks like we’re on the same team, then,” she said, giving him a wink. He glared at her.

“I don’t think so, android,” he said. 

“Android? How did you—” Iko felt the control panel in her neck open and barely had time to send an emergency comm, before she powered off. 

~ ~ ~

“Kate Fallow?” Thorne said, still crouching between pod ships with Cress. He wondered how she’d gotten here from L.A. so fast, but then he remembered he’d made the same trip across the Pacific just that day. 

“Carswell Thorne.” Kate looked back at him with a mixture of shame and surprise. 

“What are you doing here?”

“You’re not supposed to be in here,” she said.

“You’re not supposed to be working at an illegal vehicle auction,” he countered.

“I—I’m not. I wasn’t here,” she said. “You never saw me. Please, Carswell. If anyone finds out I work here I’ll never get another job. My career will be over before it even starts.”

“Well…” he said, an idea slowly forming. “Your secret is safe with me, on two conditions.”

She looked at him pleadingly, and he felt a twinge of guilt for what he was about to do, a feeling that was ever too familiar when it came to her.

“First, you’re not going to get in my way when I steal that Rampion over there.” She opened her mouth to protest, glancing behind towards O’Brian, but Thorne continued. 

“Second, I lost a considerable amount of money at your establishment’s card tables. The curious thing though, was that after five rounds, only one person saw a single face card. Now, I’m by no means an expert on cheating—oh wait, I actually am. You were always good at math, Kate. Can you tell me the odds of that happening?” He fixed her with an accusatory stare. 

“Well, what do you expect me to do? You can hardly hold the house accountable for one player cheating.”

“Ah ah, Kate,” said Thorne, shaking his head. “The winning player wasn’t the cheater. The dealer was. The winning player works for your boss.” 

“How would you even know that if you weren’t counting cards? That’s cheating too, you know.”

“I like to think of it as paying close attention.” He paused. “I want my money back, Kate. And if you don’t give it to me, I will turn you into the police. Granted they probably won’t try to arrest you for three to five business days,” he sighed. “But I’m sure your future clients won’t be too pleased to hear that their architect was involved with shady dealings on the black market.”

Kate looked horrified. “My reputation will be ruined.”

“Carswell, wait a second,” interrupted Cress. “You can’t do that.”

“We need that money, Cress, or we’ll lose the Rampion as soon as we get it back.”

“So... you’re blackmailing an innocent girl in order to collect money that you’ve gambled away?” Cress asked.

“I think innocence is subjective,” said Thorne with a shrug. “But more or less.”

She laughed sadly. “I think I’m supposed to shoot you in the foot now.”

Thorne gasped. A gunshot echoing in his memory. His hands covered in blood. “You shot off my fingers! It was you! Cress?”

Her eyes widened in alarm. 

“It’s okay,” he said quickly. The lunar throne room’s white marble floors flashed in his mind. “I remember it was… necessary.”

“I’m sorry,” said Cress sincerely. 

“I know,” he said, remembering their reunion after Cress had woken up from suspended animation, the cast on his hand, kissing her, asking her to join his crew aboard the Rampion. 

“Aces, I know! I remember!” he laughed, taking her hands in his. Cress’s eyes filled with hope and joy and tears as she caught his contagious elation. “I remember you.” He thought he might never have felt so happy to look at her, but at that moment he remembered seeing her for the first time after his sight came back and reuniting with her in the maglev tunnels on Luna, and all that joy and relief flooded over him at once. 

He cupped her face. “Oh, Cress,” he said breathlessly. “I forgot how much I love you.” She was laughing and crying, and he thought this might be a good time to kiss her, but then he remembered where he was and who else was here with them.

“Well, isn’t this touching?” said O’Brian, standing a few feet away. One hand on her hip, the other aiming a gun at Thorne.

“O’Brian-Jiě! I must ask you to put the weapon away,” said Kate, throwing her hands up in surrender. O’Brian ignored her.

Thorne’s eyes narrowed. “Grace O’Brian.”

“Captain O’Brian.”

“Is that what I sound like?” he whispered, nodding his head toward Cress. She gave him a strained smile.

“How did you find us?” asked O’Brian. 

“It turns out, I have friends in high places,” said Thorne. “Run,” he hissed at Cress. He fired a shot at the ground near O’Brian’s feet, leaving her unharmed, but distracting her enough that Cress could dart away without O’Brian seeing where she was going. 

Cress zigzagged around pod ships and hovers, staying light on her feet. She was a gazelle fleeing from a cheetah, or perhaps she was the cheetah, unable to be outpaced. She hoped Iko heard the shot and would provide Thorne backup. Cress had one goal: to get The Rampion’s engines powered up, so they could get the aces out of here.

The Rampion’s ramp was lowered, and she dashed up into the cargo bay grateful that Iko had made things easier for her, but a jolt of panic coursed through her when she nearly tripped over Iko’s crumpled body on her way to the cockpit. All at once a wave of dizziness rolled over her. Her vision blacked out and her legs gave way from under her. She tried to blink back her vision as she collapsed on top of Iko. She could hear her blood pumping in her ears. 

“Iko?” Cress, said against the pounding in her head. She rolled her over, but Iko felt like a lifeless doll. She reached around for her control panel. Her power cell was missing.

“Don’t move.” She looked up and saw Caty Nguyen was pointing a gun at her. Cress tried to glare up at her, but she was suddenly exhausted. Caty laughed. “Is that your attempt at looking angry? You’re pathetic. Give me your gun.”

“You won’t get away with this,” said Cress foggily, placing her gun on the floor. 

“We already have,” said Caty. “The auction started two minutes ago. Now pick up that escort-droid and move.” She gestured at Iko with her gun. 

Cress stood up slowly trying to avoid another dizzy spell and hauled Iko up on her shoulders. She carried her out of the Rampion as Caty herded her down the ramp and out into the hangar. She saw O’Brian pointing a gun at Kate Fallow, and Sanchez dragging a smug-looking Thorne along by the arm. 

“Don’t worry Kate,” he was saying. “Cress and Iko will rescue us. These guys have no idea who they’re messing with…” his eyes widened in alarm when he saw Cress and lifeless Iko. Cress shook her head sadly. 

“Get them into that ship,” said O’Brian gesturing at a nearby cruiser. “This time we’ll be dropping you off in the middle of the ocean. Even with your luck, Thorne, I doubt you’ll be able to get out of that one so easily.”

“Now, wait a minute guys,” he said with a nervous chuckle. “Captain O’Brian, I’m the one you’re all mad at. Don’t bring them into this.”

“It’s too late for that,” said O’Brian. 

“Wait a second,” said Caty. “Do you hear that?”

In the distance, the faint sound of sirens drew near.

“We need to move,” said O’Brian. 

“What? Carswell, you promised!” cried Kate. “I’ll be ruined!”

“I didn’t call the cops,” said Thorne defensively. “Cress?”

Cress shook her head, and then stumbled forward, as Caty shoved her towards the cruiser’s hatch. 

“No, leave them,” said O’Brian. Sanchez released Thorne’s arm as the three of them bolted for the cruiser. 

“Drop your weapons! We have you surrounded,” came an amplified voice from outside.

Thorne rushed to Cress’s side, taking Iko from her shoulders. The cruiser’s engines powered on and Cress clung to Thorne’s free arm, feeling that the wind from the engines combined with her light-headedness might knock her over. 

The doors of the hangar burst open and streams of armed policemen swarmed in, decked in helmets and bulletproof vests. Each one of them had a gun trained on Cress, Thorne, and Kate Fallow as well as the cruiser that contained the other three. It reminded Cress of the time the EC military had surrounded them in Farafrah. 

The cruiser lifted off the ground. 

“On the floor!” shouted the police. Kate kneeled down to the floor, tears streaming down her face. “On the floor!” the officer again, and Cress realized they meant her, Iko and Thorne as well.

“We’re not the bad guys here,” said Thorne, dropping Iko carefully on the ground and raising his hands in a placating gesture. 

“Everyone on the floor now!” said the officer, stepping toward Thorne and pointing a gun at him. 

“Okay, okay,” muttered Thorne, looking a little annoyed. 

The cruiser had nowhere to go and was hovering a good fifteen feet above the other vehicles in the hangar, red lasers speckled the underside from the police’s weapons. Then suddenly, it jerked upward towards the tin roof and burst through the metal plating. 

A few of the guns went off, bullets ricocheting off the underside and lodging themselves in the walls. The window of a nearby hover shattered.

“Hold your fire!” shouted the officer in charge. 

Sparks rained down from the ceiling as the cruiser tore through the wiring in the roof and a couple of the overhead lights flickered out. Police officers shouted and dodged out of the way as a piece of metal roofing crashed down into the hangar. The commanding officer yelled orders into a communication device. 

The cruiser disappeared quickly out the top of the roof and soon the hangar was quiet again. The commanding officer glanced warily at a light fixture swaying and sparking, but when he was sure it wasn’t about to fall, he swiveled his attention back to Thorne, Cress, Iko, and Kate.

“Everyone here is under arrest,” said the officer.

“Wait what?” said Thorne. 

“You’ll be taken in for questioning and dealt with accordingly.”

“Hey, for once I’m not the one committing a crime here!” said Thorne indignantly. 

Cress waited beside Iko’s limp body, as the officers pulled everyone to their feet and restrained them.

“What’s wrong with her?” said one of the officers gesturing to Iko. 

“Sh-she’s an escort-droid,” said Cress meekly. “She lost her power cell.”

“That’s Special Agent, Iko,” said the officer who appeared to be in charge. “She’s the one who called this in. Find her power cell and bring her body to the station. We’ll need her statement on all this.”

“Yes, sir.”

Cress was hauled to her feet by another officer, and then they were all marched outside and into police hovers. 

“Oh, so you guys have time to arrest me, but not to get my stolen ship back,” Thorne said as he was led past Cress. “This is why I don’t trust law enforcement,” he said as the officer guided him into a hover. “Three to five business days? Three to five business days my—!” The hover door shut.


	26. Memento

Cress leaned her head against Thorne’s shoulder trying not to fall asleep. For the entire hover ride here and the duration of their short stay in the holding cell, Thorne had been asking to talk to the empress with no luck. Eventually the police had left them to wait. For what, Cress wasn’t sure.

“Thorne Carswell and Darnel Cress,” said a police officer, and Cress opened her eyes. “You’re free to go.” Thorne gave her shoulder a squeeze and got to his feet, helping her along. She was still suffering the effects of donating her blood.

“What about me?” asked Kate, getting to her feet. “When can I go?”

“A lawyer is on the way to speak to you, Fallow-mèi, but until then, you are to remain here.”

Kate opened her mouth to say something else and then thought better of it. 

“I’m sorry, Kate,” said Thorne guiltily as he and Cress left the cell. 

Iko was waiting for them near the front, She squealed and tackled them both in a hug when she saw them. “I can’t believe I let those guys get the drop on me,” she said. “I missed the big showdown.”

“It wasn’t much of a showdown,” said Cress. 

“Although their escape was a sight to behold,” said Thorne. “I couldn’t have done it better myself.”

“I’m glad you’re okay,” said Cress. 

“Thanks. I have all your stuff,” said Iko, depositing a bag in Thorne’s hand. “And the Rampion is recovered and parked just outside.”

Cress sighed in relief. “Thank you, Iko,” she said. 

Thorne fished around in the bag and pulled out his portscreen. 

“Hey, no screens,” said Cress worriedly. 

“It’s not a screen, it’s a holograph,” said Thorne as a holograph of Cinder appeared on the screen, crouched over an android. 

“What is it, Thorne? I’m working,” she said wiping her forehead with a grease-stained arm and leaving a dark streak across her forehead. 

Thorne performed one side of the not-so-secret handshake of the missing fingers club. “Ta-da!” he said. “I need a favor.”

~ ~ ~

Thorne landed the Rampion on the roof of New Beijing Palace. The same roof where they had shared their first kiss, Cress noted, as she, Thorne, and Iko walked down the ramp to meet Cinder and Kai. Thorne gave Cress’s hand a squeeze and said, “Now this place is very familiar.”

She glanced up at him. “Do you…?”

He smiled at her like he knew a secret and winked. Cress couldn’t help blushing.

Cinder and Kai were standing with an entourage of servants and guards, waiting for them at the end of a walkway. Iko got to them first, smothering them in hugs, and after they all said their hellos they went into the palace, through corridors and down elevators until they arrived at a tearoom. 

“I wanted to update you on Kate Fallow,” Cinder said to Thorne once they were all seated. “She’ll be pardoned as you asked, though what happens to her reputation is out of our hands.”

“Thank you, Cinder,” he said. “Do you know why she was working at that auction in the first place?”

“She said it paid well, and she needed the money for her student loans.”

“Speaking of money,” said Thorne. “Any updates on mine?”

Cinder and Kai glanced at each other. 

“Well,” said Kai. “Since you lost it gambling at an illegal vehicle auction, the police have seized it and are processing it along with all the other money and assets they seized in the raid. Until that process is complete there’s nothing we can do.”

“And when will that be? Three to five business days?” He said with an eye roll and a glance at Cress. 

“More like two to three months,” said Kai. 

“Two to three months?!” Thorne said aghast. “But how will we pay our bills?”

“I think we’d better discuss that programming job now, Kai,” said Cress, setting down her tea. 

Kai’s eyes lit up. “Our head programmer will be so excited to have you join the team.”

“Say, you don’t suppose you have a job for me here at the palace too, do you?” asked Thorne. 

Kai frowned. “I don’t think so. Cinder?”

Cinder considered. “I don’t know… You’d probably be better off using the Rampion for delivery jobs than trying to find work here.”

“Really?” said Thorne glancing at Cress with a creased brow. “You couldn’t use an assistant mechanic or something?”

“You know how to fix machinery?” asked Cinder wryly. “That’s news to me.”

“Well, no, but I have great people skills which let’s be honest is kind of a weak point for you.” She frowned at him. “Maybe I could be your receptionist?”

“At my mechanic’s booth?” She laughed, and then seeing the serious expression he had, said carefully, “I don’t think so.”

Cress and Thorne looked between each other worriedly. 

“It’ll only be for a short while,” Cress said to him. “As soon as we can pay off the Rampion we’ll be back together.”

“Oh, Cress, you don’t have to _live_ here,” said Kai quickly. “I know that traveling with Thorne is important to you and this job can easily be done remotely. You’ll probably have to stop by in person every once in a while, but you don’t have to stop living on the Rampion.”

“Really?” said Thorne. “That’s great!” 

“Thank you, Kai,” said Cress.

“Of course,” he said. “After tea, perhaps you and I can go down to programming and get you acquainted with everyone and then you both can be on your way whenever you want,” said Kai. 

“While they’re doing that,” said Thorne to Cinder. “I wonder if you could take a look at the Rampion? The engine sounded weird when we were flying over. Also, the tracking systems are all messed up after O’Brian and the others took over.”

“Sure,” said Cinder. “Maybe I can teach you a few things for the next time you try to apply for a mechanic job.” 

“Speaking of O’Brian and her crew,” said Cress. “What’s the status of them? Have they been captured?”

“No,” said Cinder. “They disappeared without a trace.”

“Your first task will probably have something to do with tracking them down,” said Kai. 

“I’m glad they’ve evaded capture,” said Thorne. “I don’t mean to root against my own team, and my own girlfriend,” he added. “But Cress, I hope you don’t find them. I put them through hell, and they deserve a break.”

“As sweet as that thought may be,” said Kai. “Cress isn’t getting paid to do her job poorly. They will be captured, and they will be put to trial.”

“Well, if they do end up in prison,” said Thorne. “At least I’ll rest easy knowing their skin won’t dry out because of my valiant soap protests.”

“Uh, Thorne,” said Cinder. “I’m pretty sure the only change you inspired the prison to make was moving you to solitary.”

“Hey, best friend, empress of my heart,” Thorne drawled. He gave Cinder a charming smile. “Could I ask you for another favor?”

Cinder sighed.

~ ~ ~

Cress boarded the Rampion feeling like a new adventure was starting. Her portscreen was full of new contacts: her new coworkers. She had received her first mission, a rubber duck from the head of programming, and a starting bonus, which was more than enough to ensure the Rampion was theirs for the next couple of months. Things were looking up. 

Kai had walked her back up to the roof, and together they looked for Cinder and Thorne. They found them in the engine room. Cinder was lying under the engine while Thorne stood by with a toolbox in hand.

“Hand me the Philip’s head screwdriver,” said Cinder reaching out a hand. Thorne set a screwdriver in it. “No, this is a flat head. It’s the other one.”

“Well how was I supposed to know?” said Thorne, switching it out for the right one.

“Maybe because I already told you this earlier?” said Cinder. 

Thorne's eyes alighted on Cress and Kai in the doorway, and he broke into a grin. “How’s the Eastern Commonwealth’s newest and best programmer doing? Learn any top secret information?”

“Maybe,” she said mysteriously. “Have you learned any mechanic skills?”

“Everything has gone in one ear and right out the other,” said Cinder.

Thorne laughed. “I think I’ll be leaving the mechanic stuff to the professional.” He glanced down at Cinder. 

“Thorne, go get me some meat,” said Cinder. 

“Okay, I really don’t understand this mechanic stuff. Meat?” He asked suspiciously. 

“Like canned fish? Do you have any?” asked Cinder. “I think I found your engine problem.” 

“Sure,” said Thorne skeptically, off to collect some canned meat from the galley. 

Cinder scooted out from under the engine and wiped her hands on her pant legs. Cress kneeled down, trying to peer under the engine to see what was going on.

“There’s a cat in there,” said Cinder, just as a pair of reflecting eyes met Cress’s from the dark. The cat hissed at her. 

“Aw, it’s okay, kitty,” said Cress, speaking softly. She held out her hand to it non-threateningly, but the cat kept its distance. 

Thorne returned with an open can of tuna and handed it to Cress. She set it down in front of the engine and backed away. 

“What is it?” asked Thorne. 

“Shh,” said everyone else. 

Slowly, a whiskered face appeared from the bottom of the engine, nose twitching. The cat emerged step by step until it was completely out of the engine and cautiously sniffed the can of tuna. 

“A cat?” asked Thorne. It was the same little black cat Cress had seen at the auction house. 

“Oh, it’s adorable,” said Cress. 

“Can we keep it?” Thorne and Cress asked each other at the same time. They both grinned. 

“Good to know we’re on the same page,” said Thorne, kneeling down beside her. 

“At long last,” said Cress. 

The cat stared at them with unblinking eyes, and then began to eat the tuna, scarfing it down as if it hadn’t eaten anything else that day. 

“Uh, you probably shouldn’t let the cat eat too much of that,” said Cinder, with a faraway look that meant she was reading something on the net feed in her vision. “Tuna contains small amounts of mercury which while okay for humans, can be harmful to cats.”

“Oh no,” said Cress. She reached for the tuna, carefully tugging it away from the cat before it could claw at her. The cat followed her movements, craning its neck towards her and trying to get at the tuna, but she held it up out of reach. She held out her empty hand towards the cat, and it sniffed her, eagerly searching for any bit of tuna she might have in her hand.

“Do you think it’s okay to take a cat into space?” asked Thorne. 

“Animals have been going to space for centuries,” said Cinder. 

The cat having given up on finding more tuna, began to butt its head against Cress’s knee and even let her give it a scratch between the ears. 

“What are you going to name it?” asked Kai. 

“Captain Carswell Thorne the Second,” said Thorne. 

“What about Captain Catwell Thorne?” said Cress. 

“If it’s a girl, we can call it Cress Catnel,” said Thorne. 

Cinder and Kai exchanged a look. 

“I think your cat’s a boy,” said Cinder with a glance.

“Captain Catwell it is, then,” said Thorne.

Kai’s port screen beeped on his belt just as Cinder got distracted by a notification in her vision. “Well, it was nice seeing you two. Unfortunately, Kai and I have a meeting to get to.”

“Goodbye, guys,” said Kai. “I’m sorry you had to go through the past few days, but at least you got a cute little memento out of it.”

Cress gasped. “Memento! That’s actually an adorable name.”

“Here, Memento,” said Thorne making little kissy noises at the cat. Memento sniffed his hand and then rubbed his head against Thorne’s palm. “I think he likes it.”

~ ~ ~

Cress entered the captain’s quarters later that night, as they orbited earth, to find Thorne perched on a ladder, a paintbrush and can of paint in hand, his neck angled awkwardly toward the ceiling. He dipped the brush in the can and painted a small design with what looked like clear liquid. 

“What are you doing?” she asked. 

A drop of the stuff dripped onto his face and he shook his head jerkily before looking down at her. 

“Oh, well, it was supposed to be a surprise, but… ship, lights off.”

Painted stars that covered half the ceiling glowed in the darkness. Thorne’s face also glowed. He was speckled with paint that had been invisible in the light. 

“What do you think?” he asked. “Not too bad if I do say so myself.”

“It’s beautiful,” she breathed. 

“I remember how enchanted you were with the ceiling at my parents’ house and I thought you might like this.” He grinned, his face a moving canvas of glow in the dark paint splotches. 

“Oh, Carswell, I absolutely love it. 

“Brreow,” said Memento trotting out from the washroom. His black fur was speckled in glow in the dark paint as well. 

“Oh!” exclaimed Cress upon seeing him. 

Thorne gave her a sheepish smile. “We may have gotten some paint everywhere. Isn’t that right ‘Mento?” The cat flicked his tail in response. 

Cress laughed. “I hope that paint is pet safe.”

“Don’t worry,” said Thorne. “I made sure it was.” He climbed down from the ladder and took her hands in his. 

“It seems like you're feeling better,” said Cress. “Do you think all your memories have come back?”

“I don’t know. Before the concussion I didn’t remember every single second of my life of course, but I don’t feel disoriented anymore. Yesterday I had gaping holes in my memory.” He sighed. “But now, I’ve got my ship, I’ve got a cat... I’ve got you.” He smiled. “Everything makes sense again. I feel… at home.” 

Cress grinned. “Me too,” she said. 

“Oh, another thing I forgot, but have since recalled…” he called up a map of Greenland on the netscreen on the wall. “Oh whoops, that’s a screen,” he said averting his gaze. “Aces, I’m still a bit sensitive to light." He closed his eyes and pointed to the map. “We’ll be landing in Nanortalik in the morning. I believe we had a walk in the snow planned?”

“Only if your head isn’t hurting,” she said seriously. 

“I’ll get out the old blindfold if I need to,” he said winking. Cress laughed. 

“Or maybe, you’d like these,” she said pulling out a new pair of sunglasses from her pocket. 

“For me? Thank you, my dear.” He tried them on, turning his head to show off his new look. 

“Come on,” said Cress, scooping up Memento from the floor and wrapping an arm around Thorne’s waist. “Let’s get you boys cleaned up.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so this adventure of Cress and Thorne comes to a close. I want to thank everyone who left comments and kudos. You helped make posting my first multi-chapter fic such a great experience. Love to you all.


End file.
